Shelter from the Storm
by Sigyn Carlton
Summary: "What we know of other people is our only memory of the moments during which we knew them. And they have changed since then ... We must also remember that at every meeting we are meeting a stranger." - Rick wakes up from a coma to a world different than he remembered and finds help in the hands of a stranger. Possible Rick/OC & Shane/Lori. R&R.
1. Hell is alone

**DISCLAIMER:** The Walking Dead and all knows characters belong to their rightful owners, which I am in no way associated with. _No copyright infringement intended._

This is my second The Walking Dead fiction and it's likely to be Rick Grimes/OC and probably Shane/Lori story. To be honest, my original idea for this when I first started writing was to make it Shane/OC but I've been having some ideas and, well.

In case anyone is wondering about my other story, I'd like to tell you that it's currently on hiatus basically because my inspiration to write it seems to be on vacation. Sorry about that. I'm taking suggestions, though.

This story has not been Beta read and because English isn't my first language, I apologise in advance for any mistakes you might find. Rated M for language, horror and eventual smut.

* * *

_What is hell? Hell is oneself. Hell is alone. The other figures in it merely projections. There is nothing to escape from and nothing to escape to. One is always alone._

–**T. S. Eliot**

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**Chapter One.** Hell is alone

That was it. If the world ever went right again, she would make sure to go south if she ever had vacations during summer time again. Like Southern Hemisphere south, where they would be having their winter, the temperatures wouldn't be so ridiculously high, leaving you restless and feeling as if you're just about to spontaneously combust. Because summer in Georgia was _that _awful.

However, during the last few days –could've been weeks–, the heat wave seemed to have eased a little, and things were starting to slowly cool down... And that's why Claire feared she was not as good as she thought she was when, one bright morning, she woke up startled.

She'd been having another nightmare, but that was nothing new–at least not since the freaking zombie apocalypse started... Yes. Zombie apocalypse. Who would have known, right? If Claire was to bet, she'd put her money onto Star Trek or Star Wars's kind of future rather than Dawn of the Dead.

Though, there she was. In King County, Georgia; a place she had positively never heard of before and only knew now thanks to the map she had grabbed before leaving Fort Lauderdale, which seemed to have happened a lifetime ago. What also felt like a lifetime ago was when she last heard the sound of the living.

By now, she had grown used to the sound of the dead, but the living... That's why she sat bolt upright when she heard the faint sound of screams.

For a few moments, Claire thought it had been her dream–or nightmare–, and no one had actually screamed. _Walkers do not scream_ was the first thought that crossed her mind as she sat, in the middle of the Queen sized bed and tried to calm herself. Even though she had barricaded all doors that had access to the exterior of the house and the door of the bedroom she had spent the night, and even though she could see that nothing had managed to get past the latter barrier of protection, her heart was pounding in her chest and she was breathing heavily as if she had been running a marathon rather than sleeping.

So, after taking a few moments to will herself into a state of calmness that she didn't really feel, Claire moved to the side of the bed and reached out for the boots that lay right in front of the nightstand.

She had donned the right one and was just putting the left one when she heard it again. Screams.

Freezing her movements, she even held her breath for a second. She was definitely not imagining things as she expected–or maybe she was, and the whole zombie apocalypse crap had finally started to mess with her brains. Nonetheless, she needed to do something for all that screaming and shit was bound to bring more of those damned creatures that kept wandering about, and if she wanted to get out of that hellhole alive, last thing she needed was a herd of undead right on her doorstep. On the other hand, she also didn't know if she wanted to deal with whoever was outside. Because if there was one thing that she learnt with this brave new world, was that Dostoyevsky was right. There is not a single animal, there is no beast whatsoever that could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel. And she didn't even mean the ones that died and somehow returned to "life". No. She referred to the ones whose hearts were still beating.

The outbreak didn't just bring the dead back to life. It brought out the worst in people, and did she want to deal with that? Again?

But as the voice of the person outside reached her ears once more, Claire hurried to put on her boots and grab the .357 IMI Desert Eagle she kept on the nightstand. With one swift movement, she was out of the bed and beginning to unblock the bedroom door.

–

"Goddamn..."

She instantly regretted not taking the hunting knife that she kept next to her pillow before leaving the house, or the suppressor of her gun.

There were a couple of dead wanderers around and while they didn't represent much of a threat, she wasn't sure about the one walker that was a few feet from where she was standing and slowly approaching a man, dressed in what seemed to be a blue hospital gown who was sitting on the sidewalk, one house away, across the street. A man who didn't even flinch as the walker narrowed the distance between them. If anything... No.

"What the hell..."

No. It couldn't be it. That man could _not_ be waving at the dead man walking.

"Goddamn!"

Even though every cell of her body was telling–_screaming_–her to get back inside and shut the damn door behind her, Claire found herself cocking her gun, pulling the safety off, stepping away from the door, jumping the two doorsteps and walking with hurried steps towards the walker.

As she raised her gun and aimed at the dead man's head, Claire briefly wondered who the bigger idiot was: the one sitting on the sidewalk, or herself. And when she pulled the trigger and the loud noise filled the entire street, Claire Lincoln had her answer.

Cursing everything and nothing in particular, she quickly turned her back to the permanently deceased corpse and ran towards the man on the sidewalk.

As she approached the stranger, Claire noticed things that she hadn't seen before–like how pasty and gaunt he looked, the way he squinted and narrowed his glazed blue eyes, apparently trying to fix them on her and the look of shock plastered on his face... She'd be damned, but whoever that man was, he did seem as if he'd just gotten out of the hospital, despite the goddamned apocalypse.

She heard him mumbling something but she failed to understand for her eyes had landed on the huge, nasty looking dressing he had on his torso. Without even noticing, Claire tightened her grip on her weapon, but kept her finger off the trigger.

"Lori..."

This time, when he spoke again, she heard it all right, but she still failed to understand a few things. Like who was Lori? It certainly was not her. Not only her name was not Lori but she also had never seen that man in her life. But he didn't seem to share her thoughts for he reached out a hand in her direction.

"Hey." She slapped his hand away. "Keep your hands to yourself, would you?"

"Lo–Lori..."

Ignoring the whole "Lori" thing, Claire asked the one thing that she wanted to know. "The dressing. What happened?"

"What?"

"Your bandage. What did you do to get it?"

"My... my ban... bandage... I..."

Well, if she didn't know it before, she knew it now. That man was not making any sense, and judging by what she was seeing, he could have been bitten and the fever could be frying his brain.

Yet again, her survival senses were telling her to either walk away and get back to her safe place or to put a bullet through that man's eyes and be done with it. But before she could do one thing or the other, she watched as the man's eyelids grew heavier, his eyes seemed to have lost its focus and he fell on his back.

That was it. He was dead... Wasn't he? For some reason, Claire knelt beside his body and brought her finger to his neck, looking for a pulse.

"Oh, great." He was not dead. And, most importantly, he didn't have a fever.

A small little voice in the back of her head was telling her it was just a matter of time. It was just a matter of time for the fever hit and turn him into one of those things she'd been running from for God only knows how long now. Speaking of which, Claire raised her head and searched for the second walker that had been lurking about.

It was the rotten corpse of an old lady. She figured the woman was about to go to bed when she was bit and turned for she was in her nighties and still had one slipper on. The old lady's jaw was dislocated and it hung in a very unnatural way. Claire thought she wouldn't be much of a threat since she had no teeth whatsoever, but she still raised her gun, aimed at her head and took the shot. These days, she wasn't taking any chances. Well, maybe not too many...

Returning her attention to the man on the ground, Claire reached for his bandage and pulled it down.

Letting out a heavy sigh, she brought the back of her hand to cover her mouth. That was a wound she knew, but it was not a bite.

Biting on her lower lip, Claire looked at the unconscious man and at the streets. The only two walkers she'd seen were put down and, surprisingly enough, there weren't any others. But that calm wasn't permanent and she knew it. She also knew she needed to make a decision and make it fast. Leave the man to his demise, or take him to the place she was staying.

He could be bad. He could try to kill her or worse and then what? She would deeply regret saving his sorry ass... But what if he wasn't bad? What if he was a decent man? Then his death would be on her. His blood would be in her hands.

Inhaling deeply, Claire pulled the safety on and placed the gun in the thigh holster she had strapped to her right leg.

"You better not be a psycho," she muttered to the stranger's passed out figure as she walked around him, grabbed his right arm and pulled at it. "Or a pervert," she added when she crouched down.

Claire threw his right arm around her neck, wrapped her left arm around his back and, holding tightly onto him, managed to hoist him up.

He was heavy, and the fact that he couldn't move his legs to help her dragging him back to the house wasn't helping matters. For a brief moment, Claire entertained the idea of throwing him back on the ground and dragging him by his legs or his hair, like the cavemen allegedly did, but dismissed that thought. Would she want to be treated like that if she was in his position? Definitely not.

But the question really was: would he treat her the same? Or better still, what would his intentions be if he ever stumbled upon a lonely woman? And why the hell was he shot for? Claire didn't give it much thought. She knew she'd end up losing her shit if she did so. What she knew for now was that that man had been shot once. If he crossed the line, if he did one stupid thing, she would give him a matching wound. Or worse.

Claire had no idea how that happened, but she made it back to No. 47 in one piece. Well, technically, two pieces.

Crossing the foyer, she stepped into the living room where she carefully placed the man on the larger couch that she had pushed away from the windows when she boarded them up. She inhaled deeply when she got rid of all that extra weight she'd been carrying and studied the man.

He seemed to be a few years older than she was, and while they were approximately the same height and he wasn't exactly at his best, she was still a bit concerned about him and what he could be or do. But, at that moment, there was just one thing that concerned Claire more than what the unconscious man on her couch could do and that was what a herd of undead could do if they got there and the front door was lying open.

Her hand came to rest on her gun as she turned her back on the man and moved towards the door. She needed to put the boards back on.

–

His head was pounding when he finally opened his eyes again.

For the brief space of a heartbeat, Rick thought he was in his house, lying comfortably on his bed and all those blurry images that flooded his mind were but dreams. The destructed hospital with a few corpses in various states of decomposition all around the floor, bodies wrapped in bed sheets and lined up, side by side on the loading docks, the chaos on the streets with cars and motorcycles, even helicopters... the upper half of a woman–a woman who _should be dead_–stirring on the grass when he took a bicycle and reaching out its bony hands towards him whilst some non-human sound escaped her mouth, although that was a very, very nice way of describing that particular body part. The woman looked like a mummy, but she was... no. She couldn't be alive. It was impossible. It had to be a dream. A very wild dre–

It was only when he looked elsewhere but the ceiling that Rick realised he was not in his house, that was not his bed and, on top of it all, someone had tied his hands to the headboard. Someone...

"Rise and shine, Ophelia."

Rick turned his head to his right and found himself looking at a woman. She wasn't looking right at him so he couldn't get a good look at her face, but she seemed vaguely familiar.

She had long, wavy dark hair that was pulled in a low ponytail, in a way that her profile was the only thing he could see. Illuminated by the only source of light in the room (a lamp that sat on his bedside) Rick could see the contour of her face and a few details, such as her high cheekbones, thin arched eyebrows, pointy nose. He couldn't see much of her eyes for she was looking down, at a basin that seemed to be filled with water if the sound it made when she dipped a piece of fabric onto it was anything to go by.

"Thought you'd sleep for a few days," she said again, though this time, she turned her head a little so she was looking right at Rick. He noticed her eyes were of some light colour, maybe blue or green. "Or worse."

From the bed, Rick did nothing and simply averted his eyes from her gaze. He not only didn't know how to reply to what she'd said, but he also felt very uncomfortable about his current situation. He was all tied up _and_ half naked. To say he didn't like that arrangement was a huge understatement.

"You were out for a rather long time, pal," she carried on in the same casual tone. If she was bothered by Rick's lack of will to communicate, she didn't say and didn't let it show in her voice. "I've changed your bandage and cleaned up the wound... How did you get shot?"

Hearing her question made Rick look away from the wallpaper he had taken an interest to and meet her eyes once more. She looked expectant, but, somehow, she also looked extremely cool and collected.

"Got caught in a... cross-fire," he said, remembering the day he got shot while answering a call from dispatch.

The memories of that day were a bit blurry, but he remembered. Most of all, he remembered Shane, urging him to stay with him. That was such a close call, and Rick Grimes really thought he was going to die...

Thinking of that day and his best friend brought a handful of questions to his mind. Questions that he didn't know how to answer or _if_ he wanted to know the answers at all. Questions that were about his family and his empty house.

Swallowing hard and pushing all those thoughts aside, Rick turned his attention back to the woman a few steps away from him and watched as her features twisted lightly into a pensive look and she pouted softly. She seemed to be considering his answer, weighing his words. After a couple of seconds she nodded solemnly, but somehow, Rick could tell that wasn't the end of it. She still had questions and she looked like a woman who'd want answers.

Now he wasn't a man easy to be scared or anything like it, but when the brunette approached the bed, Rick found himself recoiling. But, in his own defence, he was completely vulnerable there.

She seemed to have read his uneasiness for she held both her hands in the air. "I just want to see if you have a fever."

Rick furrowed lightly. "Fever?"

He didn't feel sick or anything, but before he could tell it to the woman, she brought the back of her hand to his forehead.

Her hand was slightly damp from the small towel she had wetted in the basin, and Rick convinced himself that was the reason why her touch felt slightly cool against his skin and not because he had a fever. But that didn't keep him from studying her face, searching for any signs of distress or anything.

"Yeah," she said straightening her back and breaking the skin contact. "No fever."

"Why'd you thought I had a fever?" Rick couldn't help but ask. Was it because of his wound? Was it that nasty? Could it be infected? If it was, it was bad. He'd need a hospital and, frankly, the hospital seemed–

But Rick was pulled from his train of thoughts when he saw the blade she had pulled from a sheath she had strapped to her left leg. It was a hunting knife and it wasn't particularly small. How did he fail to see that?!

"I didn't." She sounded so casual that Rick felt his heart skipping a beat and his blood run cold in his veins. "I wanted to make sure you did _not_ have it."

Rick felt the right side of the mattress give in when she brought one of her knees on rest on the bed. Much to his chagrin, she still had that knife of sorts in her hands.

"Look, I'm going to release you," she said slowly and carefully, which made Rick look right at her, despite the shining blade only inches from his nose. "But know that if you make one wrong move, just one, you have my word that you will not live to regret it. Are we clear?"

Rick's breathing had become shallow and his heart was beating wildly in his chest. He swallowed hard and simply nodded at her, letting her know they were clear. _Crystal clear_.

She muttered a simple good before sliding the blade near his arm. With a swift motion, she cut off the plastic handcuffs she'd used to tie him to the headboard and released his arms, first his right, then his left.

"If you can get out of bed, I've made dinner," she announced simply as she stood once more and placed her blade back in its sheath.

Rick wanted to say something. He wanted to ask what the hell was going on, why did she do that, he even wanted to thank her for saving his life and ask her what her name was for he still didn't know it, but the moment he felt the plastic freeing his wrists, the blood ran through his veins and it hurt. He had failed to notice before but the cuffs had blocked the blood flow and his hands were numb. However, now that those restraints weren't there anymore, it felt as if a thousand needles were piercing his skin, reaching his bones, and all Rick did was to roll to his side and rub his wrists, waiting for his hands to go back to normal.

–

Not really sure about what she'd just done, Claire walked out of the only bedroom there was downstairs.

Earlier that day, she had entertained the idea of dragging the unconscious body of that man upstairs but she gave up the moment she glanced said stairs. It was one thing to carry a man at least twenty five pounds heavier than herself through the sidewalk; it was something entirely different to try to climb stairs with all that extra weight to throw her off balance. If they fell, she was risking a concussion or a broken neck. No. That was not going to happen. So, she just took him to the small bedroom that was set on the right corner of the house, next to something that seemed to be a family room and the kitchen, which is where she headed to.

There was a kerosene lamp sitting on the marble countertop and Claire took it as she walked by. If things had gone smoothly as she had hoped they would, right now she would be miles away from that awfully small place. However, her plans fell through when the sun rose and the mad man in a hospital gown came into her life. Had he not appeared in that neighbourhood today, she would now be on her way... and he was likely to be dead. Taking him off the streets, tending to his injuries, she knew she had done the right thing. But, these days, there were right things and right things.

Placing the kerosene lamp on the sink, Claire rested her hands on her hips, bowed her head and let out a heavy sigh. Things were pretty damn complicated as they were, and now... Now she had to deal with yet another problem. Like she didn't have enough of her own already.

She only noticed she was threading some turbulent and dangerous waters and snapped out of it when the sound of faint footsteps carried through the empty house and reached her ears.

Her reaction was automatic; the hand that rested nearest the sheath moved rather quickly to the hilt and she was already releasing her blade from its case when she remembered. Or more so, she was reminded of the change in her current living arrangements by the sound of uneven breathing.

Letting go of the knife, Claire turned on her heels and found the man, wrapped up in a very thin blanket, standing on the other side of the counter. He seemed to be inspecting the place, but stopped when her eyes met his.

Compared to when she found him, out in the streets, sitting on the sidewalk and looking all pathetic, like a lost puppy that had been kicked out, that man looked slightly better. So very slightly.

For a moment, Claire believed he was about to say something, but then he blinked a couple of times and gave her a short nod. It was hardly something too noticeable, but she saw it and returned the gesture.

Claire watched as he pulled the sides of the blanket closer and took a few steps around. She couldn't help but frown lightly when she noticed his gait. If a police officer had asked him to walk a straight line, he would have failed the test. His pace wasn't steady and his movements were far from fluid, like the ones of a kid that's learning to walk, or a drunken adult. For a moment, she wondered what was going on with that man. He seemed lost, like he had no idea where he was or what was going on. Unless...

"Don't do that," she warned him when she noticed he had approached the front door and was reaching out, probably to peer through one of the two thick blankets she'd placed over the boards.

"It'll give out our position," she added as he looked over his shoulder.

Despite the feeble illumination provided by a couple of gas lanterns and some candles, Claire saw the way he furrowed his eyebrows at her comment.

"Come," she said as she placed a stewpot in which she'd made some soup on the table and went back to fetch some plates or bowls and cutlery. "Have a seat. If you pass out again, you'll be staying on the floor for I am not about to carry you again."

Took him less than a minute to find everything she was looking for and, by the time she made her way back to the table, Claire saw he had done as she had told him and sat.

"Here," she said as she placed a bowl of macaroni soup in front of the dark haired man who was still a stranger to her.

Much to her surprise, the man waited until she served her own bowl and found herself a seat right across from him on the six place table to touch the food.

For a handful of seconds, nothing but the sound of their spoons occasionally hitting the white ceramic of the bowl could be heard. It wasn't the most comfortable of silences, but it was bearable and rather expected. And, if it wasn't for the sight of the man sitting right in front of her, Claire could have forgotten that he was there.

"Help yourself," she said solemnly, still glancing at her food. "I've served you once," Claire added as she finally looked up and met the man's gaze. She had heard it when he placed his spoon onto what sounded to be an empty bowl. "Don't expect me to do that again."

They held eye contact for a while. Nothing like a staring contest or anything, they were just trying to read each other. Claire didn't know what the man was getting from her end, but she could tell he had questions he'd been keeping inside, just like she had questions she wanted to ask him.

Setting her spoon down, Claire straightened up and sat back. "Okay, pal. Here it is. You have questions. I have questions. Let's get this over with. Go ahead, ask."

She watched the man sit straight and shift on the seat. He seemed uncomfortable at first, but the perspective of getting some answers seemed to ease that and he decided to join her in her little game.

"This place... Do you live here?"

That was not the question she was expecting, but Claire answered anyways. "Live? No, I'm just passing through."

"But what about the people who lived here? What happened to them?" He questioned, causing Claire to shake her head and place her wrists on the edge of the table.

"All right," she said, slightly leaning forward. "I didn't make things clear so, let me explain how this works. We both are going to have our answers, but one at a time. You ask one question and I answer; then, I will ask one question and you'll answer, and so on... But I'll let you have this one. What happened to the people who lived here? I have no idea. My guess, however, is that they are gone. The place was empty when I got here."

He stayed silent for a moment and Claire gathered that he was processing what she'd said. Even though she'd explained how they'd do that Q&A thing, it was only when he gave her a short nod that she asked her question.

"What were you doing, sitting on that sidewalk?"

Across from her, he inhaled deeply and pulled at the edges of his blanket. "I... don't really know... That's my home. I was looking for my family and they weren't there, and I just..."

It wasn't an elaborate answer, but Claire could understand what he was saying. Better than she would have hoped to. When he looked at her, she nodded once, letting him know it was fine. He could ask.

"You killed two people..."

"Two things: a) this wasn't a question, and b) they weren't people. I'm not sure under which rock you've been living, but those things were walkers."

He frowned in confusion. "Walkers?"

"Walkers, undead, zombies, whatever it is you want to call them. They're not people. Not anymore."

Claire watched as his confusion turned into something that resembled disbelief. "Is... is this a joke?"

"Do I look like I'm joking?" Despite her words, Claire managed to keep her tone casual. "Judging from everything I saw today, I gather this is the first time you see or hear about all this, which is very, very odd to be honest... What exactly is your story?"

"I don't think I have a story," he said with a small shrug. "I woke up in the hospital today and..."

She didn't want to, but had to interrupt him. "Wait a minute. You were in the hospital? Until today?"

"I believe I just said it..."

"But how?" Claire asked, ignoring his comment and ignoring the whole alternate questions settlement they had. "From what I've seen, hospitals were the first facilities to fall. And I saw your hospital from outside; it's abandoned... well, kind of."

"Something tells me this is how most of my answers are going to be," he said, "but I don't know. I really don't. All I know is, I woke up today and the whole world had just... turned into _this_."

It could be fun, if things weren't so messed up. And it was crystal clear that that man wasn't lying or trying to fool her or anything like that, so Claire simply relented.

"All right. Your turn."

"How does it happen? I mean the whole... dead but not– dead thing? I reckon you know it."

"Oh, yes," she said bitterly with a nod. "Bites. They're death sentences. If you're bit by one of those things, you're dead. Starts with a fever, but it never goes away, it only increases. Burns you from the inside out. You start having hallucinations and things like that, and then you're gone. But you come back after a while, like those things you've seen today. Sounds pretty unrealistic and absurd, I know, but it is what it is."

For someone who had missed the beginning of the end, that man seemed to be accepting things pretty well. Claire didn't know if he believed her or not, but he seemed strangely okay with the whole situation–not that going into denial would make things any different, but still.

"So, what happened? What caused you to be in the hospital for so long?"

"I got shot. It was one of the last things I remember, actually... I got shot then I went in a coma, I guess... Which month is it?"

"So, I think it is finally my turn to use those four little words and tell you that I do not know. If I was to guess, judging by the weather and all, even though I'm unfamiliar with it, I'd say... something around July and August, maybe? As the time passes by, if you don't have a calendar or something to keep track of the days and such, it all gets a bit confusing. Hard to know for sure."

"Well... If you're right, then I think I was out for a month, maybe more."

"A month?!" Claire's eyes widened. "How the hell did you survive all this time in an abandoned hospital, _and_ in a coma? Someone up there must really like you because _wow_."

As she tried to assimilate what she'd just heard, Claire noticed his still empty bowl and pushed the stewpot closer to him.

"Eat," she told him. She didn't know when exactly she started to have some sympathy for the stranger, but the thing was: she kind of did. It probably happened because of what he'd just told her. She didn't know when exactly the shit hit the fan there in Georgia, but the fact that he was alive was just unbelievable. "God knows you need to."

She was quite surprised when the corners of the man's lips turned upwards for a second or two. "Thanks," he said as he served another bowl of soup.

–

"So," Claire said moments later, after they had finished dinner and were just sitting there, on the living room. "When I asked about your gunshot wound, you mentioned a cross-fire... How did that happen?"

He blinked a couple of times, probably disentangling himself from whatever thoughts he was immersed in and switching his attention to the now.

Taking a deep breath, he said, "I was answering a call from Linden County about two armed man on a run. Turns out there were three of them..."

"So, you were a police officer before all this."

It was hardly a question, but he still nodded in confirmation.

"Sheriff's Deputy."

"I see," Claire commented simply.

So, maybe he wasn't a psycho. Or a pervert. But then again, just because he had been the Sheriff's Deputy doesn't mean he was decent and his intentions were the best.

They fell silent once again. Claire turned her attention back to a particularly thick book she'd been reading while the dark haired man seemed to go back to his thoughts. Only seemed to, though. More than just once, Claire had noticed his eyes shifting to the couch she was occupying. She had a feeling he wanted to say something, but did not. At least not for a while. It was only after a minute or two that he spoke.

"What's your name?"

Looking away from the pages, Claire found his eyes on her again.

She knew perfectly well that, despite everything–the fact that she took him out of the streets and tended for his injury, shared a meal, got to learn a bit about each other–, they were still strangers. They hadn't introduced themselves. And, in all honesty, Claire hadn't planned on doing so. They could part ways the next day for all she knew and would she really want to know him like that? Because everyone she met was most likely dead or worse, and there were people she just couldn't tell for sure what happened...

Absent mindedly, her right hand left the book and her fingers found the golden locket pendant she had on a necklace around her and she played with it for a while as she bit on her lower lip, her brain working furiously beneath that apparent calmness. Did she want to add that man–that stranger–to the piling up list of people that haunted her days and nights? Did she want to add a name to the face and make it even harder for her to get it out of her mind? She didn't think so...

However, even though she'd decided that she didn't want any more complications, she found herself opening her mouth and answering his question. "Claire." And then adding: "Yours?"

"Rick."

That was it. The face had a name now. And faces with names were the hardest to forget about. Why had she done that? Why had she done everything she did today? That wasn't how she operated–at least not these days.

Taking a deep breath and letting go of her necklace, Claire tried to smile, but didn't exactly succeed, so she just shook her head quickly.

"You should get some rest," she said, looking away from him –_Rick_– and back to the pages of her book; even though the words suddenly seemed to be written in another language and she was having a hard time understanding them. "You look like hell..."

Claire was only vaguely aware of the low chuckle that escaped Rick's lips. Her mind was currently on overdrive, thinking about all the people she had met and seen die, friends and family that she hadn't heard from in a very long time... At last, she found herself thinking about Jamie and Brandon, wondering if they were still alive.

* * *

Let me know what you think! Feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading.


	2. Gesture of good will

**DISCLAIMER:** The Walking Dead and all knows characters belong to their rightful owners, which I am in no way associated with. _No copyright infringement intended._

This story has not been Beta read and because English isn't my first language, I apologise in advance for any mistakes you might find. Rated M for language, horror and eventual smut.

* * *

We could circle each other and growl, sleep with one eye open, but that thought wearies me. I don't care what you've done, I don't know what you're planning on doing, but I'm trusting you. I think you should do the same. 'Cause I don't see this working any other way.

–**Firefly**

* * *

**Chapter Two.** Gesture of good will

"You were in the hospital," Claire said as she cleaned her gun on the dining table. "How was it?"

It was morning and Rick was having some breakfast—if toasts and water could be called breakfast, but whether he was unhappy or dissatisfied, he didn't complain.

Looking up, he saw Claire doing a pretty good job with her gun, an IMI Desert Eagle Mark XIX that held .357 magnum cartridges.

"How was it?" He echoed her question. He didn't really know what she meant. How was his stay there or...?

"Yes," she said, finally looking away from the pieces of her gun and meeting Rick's gaze. "How was the place? Too many walkers?"

It took him a moment to answer her as memories of the day he woke up flashed before his eyes. "Didn't wander through the entire place," he said as he took the glass of water. He didn't drink it, simply looked at the colourless liquid for a second. "There were a few bodies scattered around the floor, a lot of debris... The cafeteria was locked. Padlock, chain, even a thick board, but there were things inside."

Claire heard what he said and thought about while she finished putting the gun back together.

"So, it's not overrun," she said as she stood from her seat and walked out of the room.

Now, Rick didn't know much about Claire, and certainly not enough to try and guess what was going in her head, but there was something about the way she said those words, about the hospital not be taken by the dead, that made him frown and he stood from his chair. But he did that too quickly and, even though he hated to admit, he was still weak and the world spun a tad too fast and he had to lean against the table for support.

"What are you thinking?" Rick asked once things got back to normal and he could walk with more confidence.

He found Claire looking through the window she had taken the blanket off.

"I'm thinking I am going there."

Rick's eyes widened. "You mean the hospital?"

"I sure don't mean the city hall," she said as she checked the other side of the streets. Last night, the place had been crowded with walkers but now, there were just a handful of them. "Yes, the hospital," Claire added when she glanced over her shoulder and noticed Rick's eyes still fixed on her.

"You have got to be kidding. Why do you want to go there? It's doomed."

"According to what you just said to me, it is not," she replied, stepping away from the window. "And it's a hospital; there could be useful supplies, things _you_ might need."

Claire didn't know when or how it happened, but now that the sun was shining bright outside and the threat didn't seem as big and awful as it was the other night, she was thinking that maybe she shouldn't pack her things and go just now. Maybe in a few days, once Rick was good enough to go his own way, then she could keep going as well. Abandoning him just seemed wrong, at least now that she'd learnt a few things about him... She knew things would get complicated. She _knew_.

"Look, with all due respect, it's stupid," Claire heard Rick saying and she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "I'll be fine. Just..."

"Do you know what happens when a wound gets infected?" She asked blankly. "Because, let me tell you, it's not pretty. And you know what else is not pretty? The gunshot wound you have on your left side that's been covered with the same dressing for God knows how long... Even though it looks as it started to heal, probably while you still had medical care, I can't even begin to imagine how you didn't get sepsis. If it was me, I'd pack a shitload of antibiotics and whatever medicine that can be useful in the long run, but if you want to risk a very slow and agonizing death, probably worse than death by walker, fine by me."

For a long while, Rick didn't say a word. What could he say? He didn't want to die. He didn't. But he couldn't simply watch that woman go strolling through the place, heading towards the hospital like that. What if more of those creatures had gotten to the hospital? What if there were more of them trapped on the other floors? It was crazy and irresponsible. Even though she seemed to be doing better than him, it didn't sit well with Rick to just watch her do that. And because of him. No.

Claire had turned her back to him and was getting to the stairs when he made his decision.

"I'll go with you, then."

She was just about to climb the first step when she stopped. His words made her stop and she turned only her head and looked at Rick over her shoulder. "What?"

"I'll go with you," he repeated as he started to walk towards her. "To the hospital. I'll cover for you."

"Uh, no, you won't," she said sternly, eyes locked with his.

Speaking of eyes, at broad day light, Rick could see that her eyes were indeed of a light pigmentation. He had guessed the night before, blue. And green. Each iris had a different colour.

But his observations were soon interrupted for the owner of those different eyes soon carried on with her refusal. "You are going to sit tight, right here. Last thing I need is someone following me around..."

"Well, I'm not gonna _sit tight_ while you walk out the front door. There could be a mob outside, in the hospital. No. I can't allow it."

Claire didn't even try to hide her exasperation and let out a quite loud annoyed sigh. "Well, good thing I'm not asking for anyone's permission," she said rather harshly. "I'm going, you're staying. That's it."

She climbed the stairs and headed back to the bedroom to recover her leather jacket. Because she hadn't slept there last night —she found it better to stay downstairs and have some naps every now and then since she had a man in recovery to look after now—, the piece of clothing stayed where she'd left it, on an armchair placed near the window.

Back downstairs, Claire searched the jacket's pockets, looking for the car keys. It wasn't exactly a long drive to the hospital, but she wasn't going to wander through the streets on foot. Hell, no. If, by any chance, she stumbled upon a group of walkers, she not only would have the vehicle to protect her from being attacked, but she would also have a faster way out. Claire felt that such considerations brought some calmness, as if she had a plan to go by, however, it also made her feel as if a slim, cold finger was running down her spine, making her shiver with dread.

The brunette shook her head, as if it would help empty her mind of everything; she didn't need to start doubting. That was a luxury she couldn't afford lately, and certainly not right now. So, taking a deep breath, she held the car keys tightly with her left hand while the right one came to rest upon the Desert Eagle she had on her holster.

_It will be fine,_ she thought to herself over and over as it was some sort of mantra. _It's not the first time you have to do something like this. It will all be just fi_—

But the thoughts in her head were quickly substituted by something else as she walked by the bedroom in which Rick had slept. She wasn't meaning to check on him or anything, it just happened that, to get to the door that'd give her access to the garage, she had to pass by said bedroom—it was either that or going round the front of the house.

"What is this?" asked Claire as she came to a stop abruptly.

Inside the bedroom, she found Rick in the middle of the process of putting on a brown button-down shirt that was too big for him (and particularly hideous) upon the white T-shirt he had found in the closet. He had already put some shoes on—a pair of sneakers that she wasn't quite sure fit him right either.

Rick had glanced over his shoulder when he noticed her presence there, but he had his attention back to the buttons of his shirt when he answered her with a simple, "I'm changing."

Claire rolled her eyes. "Yes, I see that you're changing. What I meant is, what for?"

By then, he had finished with his shirt and Claire noticed he reached for something that seemed to be on the bed, but the bed was empty... and she just fully comprehend what was going on when he turned to face her, a baseball bat in hand.

"What do you think it is for?" He said walking through his room and towards the door where Claire still stood. "I'm coming."

Had she not known the man had been in a coma until just the day before, Claire would certainly have struck him across the head or something. What was his problem? "Are you deaf?" She asked once he stood right in front of her. He looked so ridiculous with those awfully big clothes. "Which part of the _'no, you are _not_ coming'_ did you not understand?"

"The part where I need your permission to do so."

Claire clenched her jaw and stared at him. She knew him for twenty four hours, and he was unconscious for the most part of it, and she already wished she didn't know him at all. She had kept his sorry ass alive and for what? A sleepless night? The constant worry that he may want to hurt her in the future? An impending headache that was threatening to hit her because Sheriff's Deputy Rick was a stubborn idiot who clearly didn't care one bit about his integrity? Good grief. She should've left him for the walkers... Just like she should just go her way and tell him to do the same. But did she do it?

"If you slow me down and get us in trouble, I will leave your sorry ass behind and you better believe that," she said through gritted teeth and narrowed eyes before she passed by him and continued her way to the door.

She had taken three steps when she heard a low "yes, ma'am" and the sound of footsteps following her.

It's been a while since she had anyone following her, and when she got to her vehicle, Claire wondered if she'd have to get used to that again...

–

"Go for the head," she told him once they were out in the streets. "Always the head. Anything else will be just a complete waste of energy. Your energy, of course."

Sitting on the passenger seat of a silver Hummer, Rick paid close attention to her instructions.

"You're sure they're dead, right?" He couldn't help. He had to ask. He needed to know for sure.

But, whether his question had annoyed Claire, she didn't show. She glanced at him when he asked her, but her expression was blank, as was her voice when she said, "They are dead. But if you expect me to explain how on Earth they went mobile, I'm afraid I can't do that. An educated guess would be that it affects the brain, but how precisely does it happen? I do not know."

Inhaling deeply, Rick simply nodded. That was so weird, all of it. Not in a million years would he imagine that, someday, he'd be talking to someone who was virtually a stranger about dead people walking around... However, there he was. There they were.

"Were you a doctor?" He asked after a while as he turned his head to look at the woman behind the steering wheel.

She should be in her late twenties, most likely early thirties, Rick guessed, old enough to be a doctor with some experience. "You know, before all this happened?"

"A doctor?" She said absently, her eyes shifting from the nearly empty streets to Rick. "No. I wasn't a doctor... Why do you ask?"

"Well, you saved my life, for starters," Rick remarked and watched as Claire tilted her head slightly to the left and raised her eyebrows as if agreeing with him. "You spent some care when you saw my wound and now this... And you also seem to have an understanding on what's going on."

"Considering that you've just woken up to this apocalyptic world, I don't think you set the bar very high when it comes to understand what is going on," she remarked rather kindly, which made Rick shook his head in agreement. "As for everything else, I have to admit that I had quite the hard time deciding whether I should leave you on that sidewalk or not."

Rick was slightly taken aback by her admission, but was he surprised? Not so much, I mean, she did have him tied to a bed, so.

"But you didn't," he pointed out.

"Yeah," Claire said, though it sounded more like a thought she had just voiced rather than a comment. "I didn't..."

"And I didn't say anything until now," Rick began, "but I am very thankful for that. Really."

Claire didn't say anything for a handful of seconds. She simply kept driving and paying very little attention to the few walkers that were stumbling about. Clearly the Hummer's engine was drawing their attention, but neither Claire nor Rick appeared to be too concerned about that. Both seemed to have other things in mind.

"Don't mention it," she replied simply after a while as she drove into a street littered with abandoned vehicles. She was forced to turn the engine off for there was no way she could manoeuvre her Hummer through that mess.

A few metres away from where they sat, King County's Hospital stood in all its decrepit glory.

"Wow," Claire said as she leaned back on her seat and let her hands rest on her thighs. "I drove past this place the day before yesterday and I think it looks even worse than I remember... You said you were a police officer, right?"

Looking away from the awful sight of what once was the best construction (aesthetically and functionally speaking) of the entire city, Rick turned to face Claire, who was shifting on her seat.

"Yes," he confirmed, slightly puzzled. She seemed to be fidgeting with something by her left, something he could not see what it was. But it didn't take long for him to learn that little detail and his eyes widened when she turned to face him again, a Glock .9mm in hand.

The look of surprise (slightly mixed with fear, she thought) he was bearing didn't go unnoticed for Claire. However, despite his visible wariness when his eyes landed on the gun, she wasn't the least bit comfortable with what she was about to do.

Looking straight at Rick, Claire said, "Sound will drawn unwanted attention, so _do not_ pull the trigger unless you're cornered or surrounded." Her voice was stern and inflexible, and it matched her overall body language to a tee. One didn't have to be a genius to know what message she was trying to pass, so Rick simply nodded. "And do not wander off. If you get lost or get us in trouble, I—"

"You will leave my sorry ass behind," he chimed in, finishing her sentence with the exact same words she'd used before they left the house. "Yeah, I got that."

Claire arched an eyebrow at him but didn't say anything about his witty remark. Instead, she nodded with her head and handed the gun to him. Even though it made her stomach turn into knots, she was not about to enter a hospital that could or could not have a handful of corpses roaming about with a man with a baseball bat; not that she had anything against the use of something as silent as a baseball bat, she simply doubted that Rick could swing that thing against more than one walker without feeling drained.

She swallowed hard and bit on her lips when she saw his hands closing around the Glock.

"One more thing," she said, closing her own hand around his wrists and drawing his attention back to her. "Aim for the head."

Claire didn't know whether she was talking about the dead people walking around or herself, in case he wanted to get rid of her. And it didn't help matters to her uneasiness when he simply shook his head in an affirmative sign.

Letting out a heavy sigh, she let go of his wrist, opened the door and stepped out of the vehicle.

–

Remembering what Rick had said about the day he woke up and checked himself out of that thing he called hospital, the two of them walked as carefully as they could towards the loading docks.

The sight made Claire shut her eyes closed and she turned her head elsewhere for a few seconds. Rick had told her about the lines of corpses, wrapped up in bed sheets and disposed side by side, but despite being warned, the view caused an impact. The view and the smell.

The stench of decaying bodies, coagulated blood and anything and everything that was rotting there, made Claire taste bile in the back of her throat. The smell was far from being something new, but there, it just felt as if the air, despite being an open environment, was also something thick, heavy and still. Something slate. Something in decomposition.

Shaking her head, Claire tried to clear her mind from all those thoughts. As horrible and callous as it could sound, they were dead and that was a damn good prospect, she believed. They were a couple of dozen problems she didn't have to deal later, not to mention permanent death sounded better than to roam about, terrorizing the remaining survivors... At least that was her opinion.

Turning her head, Claire focused on Rick, who was moving quietly right behind her. "Which floor you said you were?"

He hadn't said anything, but he didn't mention that. "Third level," he said pointing to the first row of blackened windows on the building to their left. She also noticed the two doors that were the only way in and out of the building. "That's where I got out."

Claire cursed mentally. One of the doors—probably the one Rick used to flee the building—was open. Why couldn't he have closed the door after him? Why couldn't she have nice things for once? But, despite her frustration, she didn't comment on the matter. He had just came out of a coma, it should be a miracle him leaving that building in the first place.

"All right then," she said, freeing her blade from its holster and adjusting her grip on the hilt. She also made sure to keep the safety strap of her holster undone in case she needed to use her gun. "Let's go."

–

It wasn't half as bad inside as it was outside, but it was still quite bad.

There were no walkers so far, but there were countless bullet holes on the walls and pools of dried blood. Reaching out to touch one of those holes, Claire swallowed hard. She hadn't been there, but she knew what happened. And knowing so made her feel sick.

"So," she said in a quiet tone as she continued to walk through the debris and empty shell guns. "Is this the best your health care can provide?"

Rick had been walking by her side now and addressed her a confused look.

"If it was me, I would write a letter complaining," she commented lightly in an attempt to make things less heavy as she ducked to avoid a cable that hung from a hole on the ceiling.

She wasn't sure she had succeeded, but when she heard the brief and low chuckling that should have come from Rick, the right corner of Claire's mouth pulled.

"Good thinking," he muttered under his breath as they made their way through the corridors.

A few more steps and Claire found something that made her feel almost happy.

"Here," she said, reaching out to touch Rick's shoulder when she stopped walking.

He turned around to see what had caught her attention and found himself looking at a hole on the wall. It wasn't any holes on the wall, though. It was more like a window.

"The pharmacy," he noted, and right next to the window, there was a door. Rick tried opening it, but it was locked.

"Shed some light here," Claire asked as she pulled something from the back pocket of her dark cargo pants.

Rick didn't have to have a good look to know what it was. Pieces of a locket pick. He found himself wondering if that was something she had prior the outbreak or not and when she knelt down and had the door unlocked in less than thirty seconds, he also wondered what she did before it all started...

Turning to face him, she brought a finger to her lips as if telling him to keep quiet as her now free hand closed around the door handle. As if Rick had been planning to scream at the top of his lungs, burst out into a song or something. He simply nodded and took a deep breath when he saw the soft click of the door when Claire gingerly pushed it open.

The few moments that they used to clear the pharmacy felt like hours, and by the time they made sure no walkers were trapped there, they could see in each other's eyes how on edge they were.

"Okay," Claire said as she took a few deep breaths. She slid the straps of an empty backpack she'd been carrying and opened it. "Grab anything you deem useful. Antibiotics, painkillers, vitamins, anything and everything."

"Got it."

"Okay." Then, she pulled a smaller bag from the backpack and added, "I'll go check the nurse's station."

Rick was not expecting that. "What?" The question simply rolled out of his mouth. "Are you serious?"

"Yes, it's right there." She pointed her flashlight to this area with counters all around just a few steps away from the pharmacy. "I'll check for things like cotton, gauze and... whatever. Save us some time."

Rick wanted to argue it could be risky, but before he could say a word, she walked past him and out the door she went.

He rolled his eyes, but did as she had said and started looking for anything that could be useful. But he wasn't a doctor or a nurse or a pharmaceutical, so there were a lot of things on those shelves that Rick just didn't know what they could be good for. For a fleeting moment, he thought of going to that nurse's station and tell Claire that maybe she should be the one sorting out medicine while he looked for things like gauze and bandages and such. But for whatever reason, he decided not to and started to check for the things he did know. Painkillers, antibiotics, antiseptics, everything and anything he could find that had the word "anti" as the prefix he was taking.

He had grabbed a handful of those and some other things that he wasn't quite sure about. If they weren't useful, they could always throw them away...

Rick had just grabbed a few more orange bottles and he was just trying to read the label when he heard faint sound of footsteps. Even though he knew it wasn't near, his blood ran cold in his veins. He instantly dropped the few bottles into the backpack he had near his feet, turned the flashlight off and reached for the baseball bat he had placed against the shelf so that he would have his hands free.

Turning around, he saw it. One of those things—how was it that Claire called them? _Walkers_—was just passing by the door. Lucky enough, it didn't seem to have noticed him. But he couldn't say the same about Claire.

Rick watched when the thing started moving towards the direction the brunette had said she would be. Swallowing hard, Rick Grimes tried to calm himself; he hadn't seen one of those things wandering so close, it was definitely something else. He urged himself to breathe in and out in a regular (and silent) rhythm as he crossed the pharmacy and headed to the door.

The walker had his back to him so it didn't notice the moment Rick put his head out the door and checked the corridor for more of those things. There was nothing else, as far as he could see.

Mustering all of his strength and courage, Rick stepped out of the room and held the baseball bat as if he was ready to swing it.

Rick followed the thing as it dragged his feet and grunted some, and when he heard a soft gasp followed by a curse, he took that extra step and struck the thing exactly how Claire had told him to: in the head.

It seemed to Rick that he'd taken the walker by surprise for he didn't lunge itself at Claire—who was kneeling a few feet to his right—as he fell. Instead, the corpse that once was a male nurse or a doctor contorted himself, his focus changing from Claire to him. But he didn't do much than twist a bit on the floor, because Rick brought the baseball bat to his skull again and again and again until it stopped groaning and trying to move. Even then, he hit it one more time-just to be sure.

But that unexpected exercise, combined with the rush of adrenaline that was now coursing through his system, made him feel weak and he had to find something to lean on. There was nothing so he ended up half-kneeling, half-sitting on the floor. Claire was quickly by his side.

"Oh, God, are you all right?"

Was he all right? He didn't feel exactly one hundred per cent. "I'll be fine," he answered as he inhaled deeply. "Just— need a moment..."

"Bloody hell," Claire cursed and Rick thought that was the first time he heard her talk like that—affected. "Did you get any meds?"

"Yeah," he replied as he tried to push himself up. His breathing had reached what he deemed to be normal and, even though he was still feeling a bit weak, Rick trusted his legs to support his weight. "The bag is in the room, though."

"I'll get it and then we're out," she said adamantly. No need, really, because he wasn't about to complain. "C'mon."

His steps were a bit slow at first, but Rick inhaled deeply and pushed himself further. He had insisted to be there in the first place so he might as well suck it up and deal with it if he wanted to keep breathing.

He was still a bit on edge as he stood by the pharmacy's door and waited for Claire as she rushed inside to retrieve the bag. He heard the sound of a few more bottles being pushed into the bag, but seconds later, she was right beside him, grabbing him by his arm, urging him to move.

–

They didn't bump into any other walkers, and for that Rick was truly grateful. If he had to go through all that again, he had no doubts that Claire was going to live up to her promise and leave him. But he was even more grateful when he found himself back on the passenger seat of the silver Hummer with the doors locked.

He inhaled deeply a couple of times. The sprint they had to make to get to the car had left him breathless. If he had to run a long distance to save his skin, he would be dead.

Claire was also slightly out of breath. Not as much as Rick, but she was breathing heavier than usual.

"Thank you," she said in between breaths as she searched for the car keys and brought the SUV's engine back to life. The most beautiful sound, in Rick's and Claire's opinion.

Cracking his eyes open, Rick turned only his head. "What?"

"I said thank you," Claire repeated herself. "For taking down the walker."

Truth was, she could've done it herself, but when she saw him smashing the thing's skull, Claire felt as if part of her worries had dissipated. Rick could have just let the walker get to her, but he didn't. And that should count for something.

Then he said something that made her mind work a bit more.

"Was the least I could do," he said.

–

"Are you serious?"

"I am."

Claire pinched the bridge of her nose and turned her back to the man standing in the middle of what was once the living room of his house.

After they left the hospital, they went to Rick's place so he could get some decent clothes. That's when he said he wanted to go after his family.

"They're alive, Claire," he argued. "And I have to find them."

There was no point in asking how the hell he knew they were alive; he had already made it clear: lack of photos and missing album families. That wasn't something some random person would take if they found the place empty. Should've been his wife.

Claire had told him it was a long shot, it's been a while since the whole world went to hell, but Rick gave her a pretty decent argument. She survived, and so did he, against all odds. They could be out there, and he wanted to go there and find it for himself. And that was something Claire could not tell him it was crazy because she was doing the exact same thing.

"All right," she admitted. "As far as we know, they might as well be. And if they are," she added while turning to face the hopeful man again. "I'd say Atlanta could your best bet."

"Atlanta?"

"Yes. I've heard they were offering shelter, food... security, some sort of refugee center. Plus, the CDC was working on a cure for whatever this is. If they got out when it all first started, maybe they found shelter there."

The look in Rick's face as he heard what she had to say was unmistakable, and when Claire saw him shaking his head, she knew that's exactly what he believed. And, being as stubborn as he had proved himself to be until now, even though she barely knew the guy, Claire knew he was going to do something she didn't approve of—not that she had any say on the matter.

"Look, Rick, it's your family and you'll do anything to find them, I get that," Claire found herself saying when the man turned his back to her and walked out of the room. "But... what is your plan, exactly?"

That wasn't exactly the speech she had been thinking of saying, but suddenly, the idea of telling him that Atlanta was one hell of a maybe just felt... too callous. And she, out of all people, would have known that.

Claire stopped when they got to what seemed to be the kitchen and Rick opened a cupboard full of plates and cups and whatnot and a handful of key chains hanging on hooks on the door. "Get to Atlanta," he said as he took one of said key chains. "Find the refugee center, find my family."

Claire bowed her head and let out a breath. She wanted to tell him that was a terrible plan—even though it didn't even sound as a plan to begin with—but for obvious reasons she didn't.

"Yeah. And what's the key for?" She asked once they got back to the living room.

"It's my precinct's key," he explained, grabbing the small bag he'd put a few clothes on. "I reckon I'm gonna need more than a baseball bat to get to the big city..."

Like that would be his only problem. "All right, you know what you do... but, personally, I think you should have something more substantial than that breakfast before you go ahead with your _plan_. Come on," Claire said, heading towards the door.

* * *

Let me know what you think! Thanks for reading.


	3. Farewell to thee

**DISCLAIMER:** The Walking Dead and all knows characters belong to their rightful owners, which I am in no way associated with. _No copyright infringement intended._

This story has not been Beta read and because English isn't my first language, I apologise in advance for any mistakes you might find. Rated M for language, horror and eventual adult themes.

* * *

Farewell has a sweet sound of reluctance. Good-by is short and final, a word with teeth sharp to bite through the string that ties past to the future.

–**John Steinbeck**

* * *

**Chapter Three.** Farewell to thee

Cooking was definitely not her forte, so Claire did the best she could with the little she had found in the pantry; beans, eggs and some slices of bread should do the trick. She knew she would be fine for a few hours, and she chose to believe that so would Rick. Just like she chose to believe that he would be better off once he got to Atlanta–she tried not to think about the other possible scenario which was _if_ he got to Atlanta. Claire briefly wondered why she cared...

She packed up after they ate, and before midday, both her and Rick were back on her Hummer, heading towards Rick's precinct, which also happened to be the only one of the county. Talk about some small city.

Claire pulled up at a nearly deserted parking lot in the back of the building. With the exception of one police cruiser, the place was dead empty. Quite literally. No sign of any walking dead.

"Seems quiet," she commented, both of them still inside the vehicle.

Rick nodded, but Claire found that to be an automatic response, the kind of thing she'd do whenever someone was talking about something she wasn't exactly paying attention, but didn't want to be rude or anything so she'd murmur something or shake her head on occasion. But she didn't get offended, quite the contrary. She understood. The way he was looking around as if searching for any threats lurking around was something really hard to miss.

"Let's go," she said, opening the door and stepping out of the car.

–

Moving with utmost care, it took them a few minutes to clear the building. There were about half a dozen walkers locked inside which, in Claire's opinion, was a very low number considering the size of the precinct.

Never in her life had Claire stepped inside a police station of any sorts, so she let her eyes travel through the place for a few moments after she slide her blade into its sheath. The precinct was pretty big and the bullpen was quite ample. There were about half a dozen desks displayed in a very functional way, two separate offices which Claire thought should be the Sheriff's office and the other one could be a conference room or something... She also recognised the American flag on a pole near one of the two doors and another flag that she assumed should be King County's.

Ignoring the blood and the dirt and the mess, it was a neat place, she had to admit. One that looked one hell of a lot like the small precincts she was used to seeing in her TV shows and such. She inhaled deeply. The life she had where she would get back home after work, turn on her TV and just relax, it felt like something out of a fairy tale. She didn't even remember what it was like to relax–_really relax_. Things had changed so damn drastically.

Claire was absently checking the message board when she heard Rick calling out her name. She looked around and found the man standing in the middle of the corridor that lead them to the back of the building, and she only knew that because that's how they got to the bullpen.

Giving the man a nod, Claire turned her back to the board and crossed the place, heading to where the man was waiting for her. She was just passing by a desk when something caught her eyes.

There were a bunch of papers scattered all over the desk and some other objects like pens and paper clips, even a broken lamp; but amongst all that rubbish, Claire saw a frame. The glass was broken, but the photo made her stop. She recognised the man, Rick, and he was with what appeared to be his family–a woman with long, dark hair and a big smile on her face and a little boy. Out of instinct, she reached out and took the broken frame with her before resuming her walk.

–

When they reached their destination, Claire didn't know what she felt.

Surprise was a good start, but that didn't exactly cover it. It had been a pretty long while since she last came across a shower–a shower that had running water that is–and she would do almost anything for a hot shower, which, according to Rick, was what they had.

But, when she spoke, she didn't say any of those things. What rolled out of her mouth when she opened it was: "You came here for a shower?"

Because the first thing he did after they cleared the precinct was to head towards the showers. Literally. As they walked down the corridor, further into the building, Claire was expecting to get to the place where they kept all the guns locked, but no. They passed by the cells, passed by the kitchen, passed by the locker rooms and got to the showers. The showers.

"Really?"

She simply stood there, beside Rick, as the man kept his hand under the running water. He was looking at her and she saw perfectly when he knitted his eyebrows together and his face assumed this confused but not quite expression. It was as if he didn't understand why she was asking him that, why she was staring at him with a blank expression plastered on her face.

"What?" he asked puzzled, and Claire just had no answer to that. Not one.

Looking at the man standing right in front of her, she simply shook her head as a small smile made its way to her lips, finally showing some kind of emotion. She couldn't believe. There she was, expecting the Sheriff's Deputy to be focusing on gearing up and whatever, while Rick was thinking about getting cleaned up. That was pretty funny, all things considered.

"Never mind," she replied mildly amused while walking towards the door–which, by the way, was hardly a door. First, because there wasn't a proper wall; there was this metal fence that didn't really provide any privacy whatsoever. And second, because the "door" was nothing but a gap on the fence that happened to have the shape of a doorframe–basically, a rectangle right in the middle–that opened to the dressing room. Whoever designed that knew nothing about showers and what those things were made for. But it was the men's shower, so she figured it shouldn't be much of a problem... maybe. Claire did not know and she certainly did not want to start thinking about that, when someone wanted to use the place. It was too weird. "I'll give you some privacy."

She was just getting to the "door" when Rick spoke, making her look over her shoulder.

"There should be hot water in the women's shower as well."

She had been to the women's shower while they were making sure no walkers were hiding inside the building; the place wasn't exactly different from the one she was currently in, but at least it was on the other side of the corridor, which meant there was an actual door that she could close.

"Yeah, thanks," she responded kindly, but quickly, and resumed her walk out of that room.

–

Okay, so maybe a nice and proper shower was indeed a very good idea. Claire was willing to admit such thing if Rick ever touched that subject–even if it earned her the good old "I told you so", even though he hadn't really said anything... But she just didn't care.

As the hot water hit the back of her neck and it miraculously eased some of the tension she'd been carrying for God only knows how long, she felt as if caring about anything else–even the goddamned apocalypse–was just too hard, and admitting she was wrong in making less of Rick's whim would be all right for it was just too blissful.

Despite the already hot weather, Claire didn't know how long she stayed under that heavenly hot water. Being able to scrub all the dirt from her skin, wash her hair, just stay there and let the water soothe her nerves and wash away her fears, even if for just a few minutes... It was good to have a break from the madness, she really appreciated that, even though she realised that she didn't bring any clean clothes with her...

Turning off the shower, Claire reached for a clean towel she had found in the dressing room, wrapped it around her body and stepped off of the cubicle.

For a fleeting moment, she wished she could stay in that precinct for a little longer. It was locked up, the independent propane system was still working which meant the building still had power... but she pushed all those dreams aside the very next second. She couldn't stay there; if she did, she was taking the risk of getting trapped–not just by walkers, but also herself, her mind. It was a dangerous thing to do, and she knew it. God, did she know...

So, forcing all those ideas out, Claire inhaled with a new resolve. That was it. That was her last day in that place. She _needed_ to keep moving, even if it's been over a week since she last heard of Jamie.

Claire reached out and grabbed the golden locket that she'd placed on top of the pile of folded clothes. Sitting on the bench that was placed in the middle of the room, the brunette held the jewelry in her hands for a few seconds. Jamie... It was Jamie who had given that locket to her as a gift for her birthday, almost five years ago. They didn't know each other for too long then, and she found him bold enough to give her something like that, a fancy looking locket with a picture of his; Jamie was giving her a promise of something she didn't know she wanted...

Biting on her lower lip, Claire opened the rectangular pendant. She felt as if there was something on her chest, something heavy and grim that crushed her lungs and made her breathe heavily. Her eyes fixed on the tiny photo of a blonde man with blue eyes and a mesmerizing smile. A man she knew and missed. A man she could only hope to be alive. And boy, did she hope. As of late, he was the practically only thing that kept her going. Even if she didn't know how they were and hadn't heard from them in a while, Jamie kept her going. Jamie and Brandon. For they were her family, and she couldn't just give up on them like that. She wouldn't.

The soft sound of someone knocking on a door made Claire snap out of her thoughts.

"Claire?" It was Rick. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah," she said as loudly as she dared as she locked the pendant and put it back around her neck. "Everything's peachy."

Standing from the bench, Claire grabbed her clothes and began dressing. Her jeans were all right, not particularly clean but not completely dirty either, it was somewhere in between; but the same didn't apply to her shirt. The once pale yellow shirt had now stains of blood and some black viscous substance that she did not want to know what was, but the smell was quite repulsive.

"Just peachy," she muttered to herself as she threw the shirt aside. She was not going to wear that thing.

Heading back to the dressing room, Claire tried the lockers. She had hopes that one of the women who worked at that station could have left a change of clean clothes there, but her search was useless. The few lockers that were open were empty, and the ones that she had to pick-lock the padlock also didn't have anything useful.

Letting out a heavy sigh, Claire went back to the showers to grab her leather jacket. Wearing it over her bra, the brunette zipped it up before leaving the ladies bathroom.

She found Rick standing a few feet away from the bathrooms doors. He was leaning against the wall as if he was waiting for her.

First thing she noticed was the uniform. He was wearing his full Deputy Sheriff's uniform and it made her arch an eyebrow.

"Now this is something you don't see every day," she commented once she stood next to him. Claire should have tried harder to hide her amusement but she simply couldn't. "I thought people only wore those things on TV shows..."

It was only when he pushed his body away from the wall and looked at her, a small smile on his face that told her he found her words to be a somewhat funny, that she noticed the other change; the facial hair was all gone, and Rick looked a lot younger. At least five years, she'd say. Hell, maybe ten. And, for the first time, he almost resembled the man on the photograph.

"The cage is over there," he said indicating a door a few metres away to their right.

It was clear enough that Rick wanted her to follow him to that cage–whatever it was–, however Claire did not. Not immediately at least.

"The _cage_?" She asked dubiously as she stood where she was, not moving one inch. "What the hell is that?" It certainly didn't sound like anywhere she wanted to go, that's for sure.

The world had ended, they were in a deserted precinct, hundreds of undead wandering through the streets and somehow Rick found himself suppressing a laugh. Not a smile. A laugh, for it was way too much to see Claire standing in the middle of the corridor, hands on her hips and asking about what the cage was. To be fair, the cage did sound pretty awful to anyone who didn't know what he was talking about, but still, Claire was a woman who had taken a stranger into her place and then went to an abandoned and semi-destroyed hospital, not to mention she was surviving alone, for Christ's sake!

"The cage," Rick explained, "is the place where we keep all the guns..."

"Right," Claire said, not able to keep some of the sarcasm out of her tone. "I don't even want to know," she muttered as she finally took a step towards the door Rick had pointed.

She heard the soft sound of Rick's mild chuckle and saw, out of the corner of her eye, when the Deputy Sheriff shook his head. Claire didn't know what he found so funny, but much to her surprise, she found herself biting back a small smile.

–

"Atlanta sounds like a good idea," Rick said conversationally as he checked a rifle.

Claire had been inspecting a shotgun herself and she let her eyes drift from the weapon and turned her head so she was looking at the man standing next to her.

She could tell, judging by his tone and his stance, that there was more to his words than a simple comment.

"I suppose," she replied casually, even though she didn't really mean that.

What she wanted to say was that, in her opinion, it was _not_ a good idea. That he was about to head into a big city, and odds were that Atlanta had been hit as well. It was really just a matter of doing a very simple math: big city meant a lot of people, and a lot of people meant big chances of a lot of walkers. But Claire wasn't going to pee on his eyes and tell him it was raining. No. Besides, she was the one who planted the idea in his head. So she just resumed what she was doing, which was checking guns and ammo.

But she must have let something slip, or maybe Rick was just a good observer, for the next thing she heard was him saying that she didn't sound very cheerful.

For a few brief seconds, Claire did nothing but to stare at the Remington she had in her hands in complete silence.

"Is there something wrong?" Rick asked when she didn't say anything. "Something I should know?"

Taking a deep breath, Claire put the gun into one of the two bags that Rick had taken so they could pack the weapons and ammunition.

"It's just," she began, reaching out for a box of .357 cartridges from the shelf in front of her. "If I knew there was a slim chance that my family was also in Atlanta, my tone would be different... but there's isn't. They are not here."

Claire fixed her eyes on that box as if it held the secret of the universe. Why did she say that, she had no idea. The words simply rolled out of her mouth, on their own accord.

Right beside her, Rick stayed silent. Ever since he met her that was probably the first time Claire talked about something that personal. She hadn't said a word about family or friends or even herself up to this point. He had figured that she wasn't from around because she clearly didn't have an accent, but it didn't occur to him that she wasn't there alone. Maybe he thought she did have a family to which she was trying to get back or something, but clearly, that wasn't the case.

That strange silence stretched out and Rick felt really bad for being the one responsible for that crappy mood. He regretted his questions and regretted making her share that about her family... But then, after a moment, he realised–Claire said that her family wasn't _there_.

Packing the rifle he'd been inspecting, Rick fixed his attention on the woman. "Where are they?"

"What?"

"Your family," he explained when Claire's eyes found his and confusion tinged her green and blue orbs. "You said they weren't in Atlanta. Where are they?"

Claire's expression softened, but something shadowed her features. Something akin to doubt. Though it lasted for about half a second; the very next moment she blinked and it vanished, and she seemed surprisingly composed.

"Last I heard, they were in Cardiff," she said, and Rick noticed her voice was strangely soft and completely void of emotions.

He frowned. "Cardiff? As in Great Britain?"

"Precisely."

"And are you... planning on... going there?" Rick asked; he did his best to hide his doubts, but he didn't know if he had succeeded. "To Cardiff, I mean."

Claire took a Winchester rifle from the shelf, made sure it wasn't loaded and checked the scope before handing it over to Rick. "Are you planning on going to Atlanta?"

It was a rhetorical question and Rick understood that immediately. But he still found it hard to believe. How was she going to do that?

"I'm sorry, I'm curious," he admitted taking the rifle from her hands and putting it in a black bag. "What is your plan?"

"Get to New York, get a plane, cross the pond, get to Cardiff."

After hearing her plan, Rick couldn't help. His eyes widened and he stared at the brunette for more than a couple of seconds. If he didn't understand why she hadn't said his plan was a lousy plan like he thought she would when they were in his house, he understood that now. Because her plan sounded even more ludicrous than his plan and, frankly, that was saying something.

"Why... why New York?" Rick had to ask. "What's there, if you don't mind my asking?"

"I don't mind. The Hancock Field Air National Guard Base is located in Syracuse, New York."

"Field Air," Rick commented absently and Claire simply nodded. She wanted a plane and that made sense. Well, kind of.

"But why do you need to get there?" He asked curiously. "You could find a plane at Hartsfield-Jackson just as easily... Besides, do you know how to fly?"

By then, Claire had emptied the rack of guns on her side of the cage. She turned around and noticed Rick's side was also empty; they had packed every single weapon and ammunition there was.

"It's not just about aircrafts. I need to get there because that's where I told them I would be in case they managed to leave Great Britain," Claire explained. "And yes, I do know how to fly."

"All right," Rick said as soon as his brain processed everything Claire had just said. "I have to ask... Exactly what did you do? Before all this, I mean."

Claire didn't answer right away; she studied Rick's face for a few seconds. He seemed really curious, like he had tried to guess what she did for a living, but was clueless.

"I served in the military," she replied after a moment, and the change in his expression was really hard to miss.

Rick's eyes widened and the curiosity was quickly replaced with surprise. Dumbstrucking surprise.

"Military?! You serious?"

"Aye," she said casually, trying to hide a smirk. It was always funny when people–especially men, for some reason–first heard about her career... "Fighter pilot for the United States Air Force if you must know."

Fighter pilot... Well, no wonder she knew how to fly.

"Wow... I would never guess," Rick said and a low chuckle escaped his lips.

Claire's lips turned upwards as she heard that admission. "Most people don't," commented lightly. Then, she grabbed the handle of the bag and straightened up. "Anyway, we should get going. Long road ahead."

With a short nod, Rick took his own bag and led the way out of the cage.

–

"I don't think I need to advise you to conserve your ammo," Rick said as they left the building.

They were back on the parking lot, which, to their delight, was still empty.

"No, I don't think you do," Claire replied quite cheerfully as she made her way to her vehicle. The silver Hummer that she had not bothered to park properly.

"Are you sure you don't need any more weapons?" He asked once he stopped by the one patrol car that was still in the parking lot.

Once they had packed everything, Rick noticed that Claire had taken two guns–a SIG-Sauer and a Benelli Nova–because he insisted quite a lot and ammunition.

Placing the black bag on the backseat of the Hummer, Claire turned to look at the man she had known for less than forty two hours. He sounded concerned for her and that was something she wasn't exactly expecting. _Maybe I judged him wrong,_ she mused to herself as she pushed the door closed._ Maybe he is a genuinely decent person._

"Do not worry, Deputy," she told him while walking towards the back of the car, where she unlocked the trunk and a few more weapons came into Rick's view. Two pump-action shotguns, about three handguns, clips and bullets, blades, ropes... "I'll be all right," she added. A small smile playing with her lips as she watched the change in his features.

"I guess you're right," Rick admitted lightly.

Even without the guns and knives and whatnot, Rick had to admit that Claire seemed to have everything under control. This whole new world was basically survival of the fittest and without a doubt that woman had the tools and the skills to survive. If only she would come with him...

"Here," Rick said as he turned his back to the brunette and fetched something from his car.

Claire waited for whatever it was that Rick was doing and she was quite surprised when he handed her an old walkie-talkie.

She accepted the object from him but, in all honesty, she had no idea what that was for.

"I understand you're looking for your family," he began, making Claire look away from the walkie and fixing her gaze upon the uniformed man. "Believe me, I really do. But, as you said, the CDC was working on something to fix this... I don't expect you to change your mind about going to New York, but just– if I there's a cure for this, I thought maybe you would want to take it with you? You know, just in case.

"Anyway, there's just this one battery and I'll turn mine on everyday at dawn for a few minutes. If for some reason you decide to go to Atlanta, you can find me with this, and I'll do what I can to help you like you helped me."

For a handful of seconds, silence fell upon them. Not an awkward silence, just... quietness, as they both contemplated what was next.

Did Claire ever consider the idea of going to the CDC to check if they had created something to end that, whatever that was? Yes, of course. But, whenever she thought of it, she needed to remember that she would be doing that alone, without anyone to back her up and that was not a risk she was willing to take...

Shifting her eyes to the walkie she had in her hands, Claire wondered if her resolution had changed after she heard Rick's offer. Because that sounded an awful lot like an offer. Was she willing to risk that chance now that she wasn't going to do it all by herself? She found herself wavering.

"Thank you," she said, looking up to face him. "I will keep that in mind."

Claire offered him a small and grateful smile and Rick smiled back. She found it funny how two strangers had developed such bond and trust over such little time. Maybe the apocalypse didn't bring only the worst in people; maybe it brought the best in some. Nothing like the end of the world to bring people together. Speaking of which...

"I've got something for you as well," Claire said before excusing herself and running to her car.

Back at the house, while Rick was finishing his "lunch", Claire took some time to check what they had taken from the hospital.

There were a lot of things that could come in handy like analgesics, anti-inflammatory, antibiotics, antipyretics, anesthetics and related drugs, healing ointments, vitamins. But there were things that she just didn't know how to label like mood stabilizers, hormone replacements, stimulants, tranquilizers, antipsychotics, antidepressants... Could those things be useful? Yes. But not so much without a doctor.

Fetching three bags she had found on the closet of the master bedroom, Claire separated the pharmaceuticals in three bags: one with things she believed Rick could need, one with everything she judged useless like antipsychotics and related drugs, and a smaller one with a handful of things she could use. She wasn't a hypochondriac or a drug addict, but she decided that mild analgesics were okay.

Grabbing the first two bags from her car, Claire joined Rick once again by his police car.

"Do you have any medical conditions?" she asked, placing the two cases on the lid of the car's trunk.

Just because she judged some of those drugs useless, doesn't mean Rick could need them, like Albuterol or whatever, after all, he had taken some of those things.

"Uh, no," he said. "None."

"Okay," she said with a nod and handed him the blue bag. "These are the ones I think you could make better use, in case you need. I'm not a doctor, but I think you should take some vitamins because you've been hospitalised."

Rick looked at the bag then at Claire again. Even now, he found it hard to believe that she had gone through so much trouble to help him. "Thank you," he said truthfully. And he meant that with all his heart. If it wasn't for her, if it wasn't for Claire, he'd be dead now. She had saved his life, and that was something he would never be able to repay or thank her enough. "Thank you so much, for everything."

Quirking the left corner of her lip up, Claire held the other bag of drugs against her chest. "Don't mention it," she said kindly.

"Oh, and before I forget." Claire pulled a small piece of paper from the back pocket of her jeans and handed it to Rick. "I found it on one of the desks in the bullpen... thought you might want it."

He knew what she was giving him before he saw it, but he was just as surprised and quite emotional when he saw it. The photo of his family.

Blinking a couple of times, Rick brushed his fingers against the image of his only son. Carl. He wished with all his heart that he was all right.

Reluctantly, Rick looked away from the photo and locked his eyes on Claire's, and when he spoke, his voice was heavy with emotions. "Thank you," he breathed out.

"You don't have to thank me," she said gently. "I know how hard it is to be separated from the ones you care for the most..." Without even noticing, Claire's fingers found her necklace and she played with it for a few seconds. "And I know that a visual reminder is, sometimes, the best motivator."

For a moment or two, Claire and Rick didn't say anything. They didn't have to. They knew what the other should be feeling and that silent understanding and sympathy that they shared was more eloquent than anything they could think of saying.

Then, just as Claire was about to say something, the sound of something being lazily dragged and the faint moaning that was characteristic of the undead reached them.

On the other side of the parking lot's fence, there was a walker. And, judging by his peculiar wardrobe, Claire guessed he once worked at that precinct.

"Leon..."

Yep. She was right. Rick knew the man. And even though he wasn't particularly fond of Leon for he said the man was careless and dumb, there were hints of sadness in his tone that told Claire he felt sorry for the careless and dumb officer. And one didn't have to be a genius to figure out what he planned to do.

"You know what happens when you fire a gun," she told him, but managed to keep the lecture tone out. He didn't need to be lectured.

"Let's not be here when they show up," he said simply before walking over to the fence and raising his Colt Python.

Claire felt her heart jumping when the loud bang filled the entire open space and she had to inhale deeply as she watched the now permanently deceased, Leon Basset, fell to the ground.

"I hope you find them," she told Rick once he had placed his gun in its holster once more and was again standing near his vehicle. Claire had already gotten into her Hummer and had simply stopped to wish him good luck.

Giving her a short nod, Rick said, "You too."

And, with that, they parted ways.

* * *

Thank you for reading and special thank you to **IndigoFades** for leaving a review!

Let me know what you think, please?


	4. Change of plans

**DISCLAIMER:** The Walking Dead and all knows characters belong to their rightful owners, which I am in no way associated with. _No copyright infringement intended._

This story has not been Beta read and because English isn't my first language, I apologise in advance for any mistakes you might find. Rated M for language, horror and eventual adult themes.

* * *

This is what life is; a chain reaction of individuals colliding with others and influencing their lives without realizing.

—**JD Stroube**

* * *

**Chapter Four.** Change of plans

_The sky above their heads was grey and cloudy as it had been the whole week and the dark clouds held the promise of a storm. But none of those things would be enough to wipe the huge grin that was plastered on the angelic face of the eight year old boy who was getting ready to kick the football._

_"That's it, everyone. The World Cup lays on the feet of Brandon William Murray, England's golden boy. He places the ball on the penalty mark, glances at the goalkeeper and takes a few steps back. He is ready. He takes a deep breath and the entire nation of Great Britain holds their breath... He goes for it aaaand GOAL! ENGLAND IS THE CHAMPION OF THE WORLD CUP! BRANDON MURRAY IS THE HERO OF THE CROWDS! BRAN-DON! BRAN-DON!"_

_Claire watched with fascination as the young boy ran round the backyard, celebrating the victory with the invisible crowd that, according to his narration, was roaring. The smile on her face grew bigger when Brandon_—England's golden boy—_made his way to the doorsteps, where Claire was sitting._

_"Come, Aunt Claire," he said reaching out and taking hold of her hands. "Come play with us!"_

_Claire closed her eyes as she felt him pulling her by the hands. She was willing to complain, just for the sake of it, when another voice joined Brandon's._

_"Yeah, _Aunt_ Claire, come... Though keep in mind that you must use your feet instead of your hands."_

_Hearing that, the brunette narrowed her eyes at the man who stood in the middle of the backyard, holding the ball in his hands. However, her glare was not enough to wipe the conspicuous grin he had plastered on his face; quite the contrary actually._

_"Kick the ball instead of throwing it. Think you can remember that, love?" He added smugly, winking at her._

_Quickly shifting her glance to Brandon who was still looking at her expectantly; not able to resist those big brown eyes and that bright smile_—_not to mention the challenge_—_, Claire stood from the steps and allowed the little boy to escort her towards the middle of the backyard and the blond man who stood there untroubled._

_"Kick the ball," she said as she approached him. "Oh, I will certainly keep that in mind, _love_."_

_Their eyes locked and, despite the veiled threatening tone she had put into those words, his smile grew bigger. He knew exactly how competitive his fiancée was and he simply could not miss the chance._

_Even though he was highly amused with everything, he had to feign outrage when Brandon announced that Aunt Claire would be on his team._

_"Oi! Two against one? How is it fair?"_

_"There's only three of us, Uncle Jamie," reasoned Brandon, sounding a somewhat annoyed and Claire couldn't help but smile at that._

_She caught a glance of Jamie's eyes and noticed that he also had found that quite amusing, but tried his best to not let it show. He didn't exactly succeed, though._

_"Then how come it's you two?" He queried his nephew. "Why can't Aunt Claire be on my team?"_

_"Because that makes two adults on the same team," smartly refuted Brandon. "And _that_ is not fair. Aunt Claire is mine, now give us the ball."_

_Brandon reached out to take the ball from James's hands, but he raised it above his head. "Not a chance! If you have Aunt Claire, then I have the ball."_

_Claire had to bit on her lower lip to keep her from laughing at those two when Brandon turned to face her. He didn't seem particularly happy about that, but it wasn't like he was too bummed either._

_"It's all right, kid," she said, putting her hands on his shoulders and walking with him closer to their 'goal' _—_ which was basically two empty flower pots turned upside down, set about a metre apart. "Let the old man have the ball... for now."_

_Claire smiled at him and raised her right hand up; Brandon beamed. "For now," he agreed and promptly raised his own hand slapped his palm against Claire's in a high-five._

_Then, as soon as they parted, Brandon shouted, "Bring it on, then, Uncle Jamie!"_

_Looking at Jamie and Brandon, seeing the wide open smiles on their face and how they seemed completely unaffected by anything but their game, Claire couldn't help but smile._

Blinking a couple of times, Claire was rudely pulled from her memories and tossed back to this crude reality.

Slamming her feet on the brake, she brought the silver Hummer to a complete stop. For a couple of seconds, the brunette did nothing but sit there, eyes fixed on the horizon. Whatever road she was right now, was just empty as the small town that now lay behind her.

"Okay," she murmured to herself as she leaned back on her seat. Sparing a glance to the open map that lay on the passenger seat, Claire tried to remember when exactly she had left the town; even though she was the one driving, she was also deep in her thoughts and memories that she couldn't tell for sure. "Oh, God..."

Taking a couple of deep breaths, Claire tried to clean her mind from everything. It wasn't like she wanted to forget—she didn't; she just didn't want to have her mind clouded as she tried to get to New York. She considered herself lucky that nothing happened this time, but she knew better than to count on such thing as luck. One slip, just one moment of distraction and she would be gone. No. Hard as it was, crude as it could be, she needed to be sharp and remain focused.

A couple more seconds passed and Claire finally moved. She didn't resume driving, though; instead, she undid her seatbelt and reached for a backpack that lay partially beneath the passenger seat.

There were a few clothing articles in the bag, along with a few clips for her .357, some snack bags, two bottles of water, and right underneath it all, she found what she'd been looking for: a mobile phone.

Placing the bag on the floor by the passenger seat, Claire held the small device in both her hands as she turned it on. She knew that most telecommunication systems were long gone, but that was one of the things that were still working. God bless satellite phone systems.

The phone came to life and there was really nothing fancy about that green screen with a couple of bars on each side and a few commands on the screen. There was still a little bit of battery left and the signal was hardly the best, but when she considered the bigger picture here, that was good enough.

Reaching for her backpack once again, Claire pulled a charger from the front pocket and connected one end to the cigarette lighter receptacle and the other to her phone. As the phone charged, Claire quickly accessed her contact list and thumbed through the names until the one name she'd been looking for was displayed:

**MURRAY, James**

She stopped instantly and her thumb brushed the dial button, but she didn't press it immediately. Last she had heard from Jamie he was running out of battery and still had to find a way to charge his phone. It's been quite a long time since that last conversation, but Claire refused to even entertain the worst case scenario. It was Jamie she was talking about, and if there was one person who could pull through anything, that would be him so the reason why Claire hesitated to dial his number wasn't that.

Say he had found a source of power and charged his phone; what if she called and the phone was set to ring? If he was out in the open, she'd be sentencing Jamie, Brandon and whoever else was with them to death. What then?

"Bloody hell, Jamie... call me. Call me _now_."

Needless to say, it didn't happen. The phone did not ring; Jamie did not call. And even though Claire knew it wasn't going to happen, it didn't keep her from feeling a somewhat disappointment and even a little hurt. She also knew she shouldn't have let the phone's battery die—not when she had a place to charge it. What if Jamie had called?

What if this. What if that. There were so many _what if_s troubling her despite her best efforts to shut it all down. Easier said than done, though... She was worried, and there weren't many things she could do about it. In fact, there was just one thing.

Praying that Jamie had left his phone on silent and set only to vibrate, Claire pressed dial and brought the phone to her ear.

There was only silence at first, which made Claire believe that the call would not complete. Maybe Jamie didn't find any power source to charge it; maybe he had found shelter, some place safe where he could stay for a while and didn't need to venture out for he had plenty of food and water. It was one hell of a maybe, Claire knew, but as long as she didn't know for sure, she had no reasons to think anything else had happened to him. To _them_. No.

A few seconds passed—seconds that felt like hours—before the sound that indicated that the call could not be completed reached her ears. Closing her eyes, Claire bit on her lips and brought the phone down.

She told herself once more that Jamie and Brandon were perfectly fine, mentally assured herself that it was just a matter of low signal as it read on the display of the phone. Nonetheless, deep inside, a little bit of hope that she'd been desperately clinging onto had just died...

Placing the phone aside, Claire inhaled deeply. She would do anything to have everything like it used to be. No running and hiding, no need to fend for her life, no dead people walking around and trying to eat anyone and anything that was living...

As she sat there, in the middle of a dead empty back road, wishing for something she had once deemed to be rather impossible, Claire found herself re-thinking her seemingly strong resolute. What if the people from the CDC had worked a cure?

It was yet another _what if_, but then maybe she had a chance to have her life back, right? And even though two people against a sea of undead was hardly a chance and definitely _not_ the best scenario she could think of, still the odds were twice higher than she had ever imagined. Maybe...

"Maybe." Claire's left hand took hold of the steering wheel while her left one went to the gear stick. Not allowing her brain to start over thinking things, she put first gear on, drove a few metres ahead before making a U-turn right in the middle of the road. "That's enough for me," she muttered to herself as she drove back to King County.

–

Claire found it hard to believe how far had she driven until she stopped. It took almost one full hour for her to return to the urban perimeter of King County and cross the place, heading towards highway 85, the main road that connected King County to the capital of Georgia, Atlanta.

For the first time since she left Haines City, in Florida, Claire found herself wishing she had gotten hold of a Citizens' Band radio. She knew that the Crown Victoria that Rick had taken from the station would be equipped with a communication system akin to that, and if she had one, she could easily locate him. No trouble, though, after all, she had managed all by herself thus far.

With that in mind, Claire focused on the road and on the map that lay open beside her. Every now and then she caught a glimpse of the satellite phone that was lying over said map, but the brunette did her best not to give in to overwhelming memories, flashbacks and whatnot.

And she succeeded. Claire's attention was completely directed to the road and its surroundings that she recognised the blue and white Crown Victoria as the one that belonged to the Sheriff's Deputy, several metres away.

"No..." Claire couldn't help but frown as she drove closer to the vehicle. As she suspected, it was abandoned.

Taking a moment to look around, Claire put her car in neutral and pulled the parking break before stepping out of the vehicle. She had already come that far, might as well check and see what the situation was.

Even though she had already seen the car was empty, which meant that Rick wasn't dead (or not dead, but not quite), Claire felt quite anxious when she reached for the police car's door. Her heart raced and she found herself seeking for some kind of reassurance on her trusted .357 she had on its holster.

With one last look around, Claire opened the door and it was only after she saw the interior of the car that she let out a breath she didn't know she was holding.

Closing her eyes for a brief second, Claire got into the car. The keys were still on the ignition, which she figured could only mean one thing: he had run out of gas. Even though she was quite sure that's what had happened there, Claire still tried to turn on the engine. Didn't happen.

"Okay," she whispered to herself as she bit on the inner part of her lower lip.

So Rick was on foot. That wasn't an arrangement Claire was particularly confident on give the fact that the man, despite his credentials, was still relatively new to this brave new world and how it worked, but there was really nothing she could do about that. Except maybe try to find him. Again.

She raised her eyebrows and let out a soft sigh. _At least he took his bag of guns,_ she mused when she made a quick inspection of the car and noticed the bag was gone. That was something. She wasn't quite sure what exactly, but still.

Not wanting to waste any more time there, Claire exited the car and closed the door behind her before she walked back to her own vehicle.

If he had stayed on the road, it shouldn't be hard to find him. _If_ he had stayed on the road...

As she steered the Hummer away from the Crown Vic, Claire hoped Rick hadn't decided to venture into the woods.

–

He hadn't walked ten miles and his breathing was already heavy.

Taking his hat off and running a hand through his damp hair, Rick cursed himself for his stupidity. He had driven past a few cars before he left King County; he should have checked them for gas. Stupid.

Inhaling deeply, he willed his legs to keep moving. Atlanta was still a long way ahead and, well, if he stopped now, he was as good as dead. He needed to keep walking. One step at a time. One step at a time. One step–

Rick was so tired that, at first, he thought he was hearing things. Wasn't exactly unlikely, he figured. The sun was blazing upon him, he was definitely not in his best shape... it could be that his body was playing tricks on him. But nonetheless, Rick still had to check.

Turning around, Deputy Grimes found himself frowning. It couldn't be Claire's Hummer the car he was seeing, could it? She had made herself very clear that she intended to go north instead of south... No. He was hallucinating. He should be.

Then the vehicle came to a stop right next to him, the passenger's window went down and he saw the familiar face of the brunette that had saved his life.

"Excuse me, Officer," she said lightly, leaning forward and resting her forearms on the steering wheel. "I'm not from around and I think I may have taken the wrong road... would you be so kind and point out the way to Atlanta?"

Rick didn't even try to hide his amusement, though he did shift his gaze to the asphalt for a second. He was still smiling when he looked up.

"Atlanta, huh?" He squinted a bit as he looked around. "I'd say you're on the right way," Rick said as he took a step towards the Hummer.

From her place behind the steering wheel, Claire smirked. "Come," she said, gesturing with her head for him to get in the car.

Sliding the strap of the bag from his shoulder, Rick did as he was told, though he took a moment to place the bag of guns on the backseat, which was a good thing for it gave Claire the few extra seconds she needed to get the map and the phone that was still charging from the passenger seat so Rick could occupy it.

"Thanks," he told Claire as he climbed on the now vacant seat beside her.

"Don't mention it," she said simply, as she folded the map and placed it on the dashboard before starting moving again. "I saw your car back there... were you planning on walking all the way to Atlanta?"

"Well," Rick said with a shrug.

"Hell of a plan," Claire commented a tad sarcastically. "I mean, really. It's about two hundred degrees."

Rick chuckled. She was quite right. Well, she was wrong about it being two hundred degrees, but it was pretty damn hot. Hell of a plan indeed. "Yeah, but it's not like I had a lot of options, y'know."

Claire simply nodded and chanced a sideways glance at Rick; wasn't hard for her to notice that the man seemed to be suffering from the heat. Then again, with all those clothes, the hat, the extra weight _and_ that blazing sun—no wonder. Letting her right hand go from the steering wheel and changed the air conditioning, which was already on, to a higher level.

"There's water in the backpack by your feet," she told him.

Rick turned his head so he was facing the brunette's profile. He briefly wondered why she was doing all that, why was she taking so much trouble, but didn't ask; deep down, he thought he already knew why. She was in the military; normally, those people had a high and very strong sense of morality.

"Thank you," he said as he reached for the backpack.

There were two bottles of water and Rick took one of them, making a mental note to look for water next time he had to go after supplies.

As he drank from the bottle, Rick couldn't help but notice that there were so many things about this new world that he still needed to get used to. Doing a quick headcount, he'd been on the brink of dying or in a very though position quite a few times and, much to his incredible luck, Claire had been there to _rescue_ him pretty much every single time. He owed her a debt that, in all honesty, he didn't know if he'd ever be able to repay.

"So," he said once he placed the half empty bottle back in her backpack. "Atlanta."

It was only because Rick was looking at the brunette's profile that he noticed her reaction to his comment for she didn't say a word; she simply raised her eyebrows and nodded once, eyes fixed on the road.

"May I ask what made you change your mind?"

Claire didn't answer immediately. She held her gaze upon the empty road for a few more seconds before she shifted her eyes so she was looking right at Rick. "Honestly? You did."

Deputy Grimes's eyes widened. That was something Rick was not exactly expecting to hear. "Me?"

"Well, kind of, yes," Claire admitted, returning her eyes to the road. "When you mentioned the CDC and the cure, that was something I've been thinking about for a fairly long time, but I never really considered it to be a possibility. An actual possibility, I mean. So far, I considered it to be something like a dream because it was irrational for me to want to go there, all by myself. I've managed to survive thus far, but only because I took precautions. But then you showed up, and then I began to think that two, while still not the best arrangement I could hope for, is better than one."

Rick took a moment to consider everything he had just heard and he could not say that her argument was completely invalid. It wasn't. Was there room for improvement? Quite so. But given the circumstances...

"Makes sense," he acquiesced.

"Sure does."

Addressing a sideways glance at Claire, Rick noticed the smallest of smiles tugging at the corners of her lips, and it grew bigger when she turned her head and her heterochromic eyes met his blue ones.

Before the world went to shit, Rick had not known very few people that would go out of their way to help someone else—let alone someone they didn't know—, and the fact that Claire had showed up in his life, completely out of nowhere and had done just that, it made Rick feel as if he had been granted, not only a second chance, but also a third, fourth, fifth... And when he looked at her, he saw in those odd-eyes that maybe she felt just the same.

–

"No."

"Come on," Rick said calmly. "There's nothing you need to worry about..."

"Absolutely not," she said adamantly, crossing her arms across her chest and planting her feet. "No way. You can forget that."

Despite his best efforts to convince Claire that riding a horse was probably safer than most things she'd done in her life, Rick could tell, just by looking at her stance, that she wasn't buying any of that.

Bringing his hands to his hips, Rick let his head fall and a low sigh escaped his lips. He managed to keep the small smirk that was tugging at the corners of his lips concealed for a few seconds, but when he raised his head to face the very resolute woman, traces of said smirk was still there, on his lips and probably on his eyes. He simply could _not_ believe that situation.

"So, you rather walk the last seventy miles that lay between us and Atlanta?" He challenged the stubborn woman and Claire seemed to consider that for a moment.

Looking around, she saw nothing. A big sea of nothing but green grass and trees and more grass.

If she had agreed with Rick when he first proposed for them to go to Atlanta when they had left the station in King County, then odds were that the gas on the Hummer would have been enough to take them to the capital of Georgia. But did she do that? No. Instead, she drove about a sixty miles until she decided that Atlanta and the CDC was worth a shot, turned around and drove the same distance and then some until they ran out of fuel in the middle of nowhere.

Maybe not exactly "_nowhere_" for they quickly spotted a house only a few metres from where they got stuck and decided to check.

It was Rick who had found that the people who lived there were long gone. They were trying to see through the windows if there was anyone still living in that place when he stepped away from one particular window with his hand over his mouth—and looking a little green in Claire's opinion.

She knew. He didn't really say a word, but Claire had a pretty good idea what he'd seen in there. So they were dead—whoever they were—but there was an old and a tad rusty pickup truck parked near the house that could be promising.

Could be. When Rick tried to start it, nothing happened, and when Claire checked the gas tank, the only thing it had was dirt. Clearly that old thing had been there long before the apocalypse started.

They were just about to gather their belongings and get back to the road when something caught their attention.

Believe it or not, in a not so spacious fenced area behind the house, there was a horse. Claire could only imagine how long that horse had been there and how did he survive, but there he was. And it was then that Rick had his brightest idea thus far.

"I've walked longer distances," Claire said as she turned her attention back to the man standing before her.

Rick had taken off his jacket and was wearing only his uniform now. She had told him to keep the jacket on, despite the obscene heat, for it would provide him an extra layer of protection in case of an unexpected encounter with a dead thing, but did he listen? Of course not. Just like he didn't seem to listen to anything she'd said in those last few minutes.

"Oh, come on," he said again and Claire couldn't miss the amusement in his voice. "Don't tell me you're afraid."

"I'm _not_ afraid," she replied. "I'm simply... rationally concerned."

Rick's eyes widened. "Ra– rationally concerned?" That had to be a joke. What was there to be rationally concerned about a horse? "It is a horse, not a tiger!"

"So? Horses are dangerous."

Rick tried not to laugh, he really did. But he could not help the snort of laughter that made it past his lips. "Dangerous?!"

"Yes," Claire replied annoyed. "Dangerous at both ends and... crafty in the middle. Can we stop talking about this now, please?"

At first, all Rick could do was nod as he bit back what could be a fit of laughter. Quite literally. It was only after he took some time looking around that he trusted himself to speak.

"All right, so, what are we gonna do then?"

–

"I knew I would live to regret it... I _knew_."

Adjusting his hold onto the reins, Rick couldn't help but chuckle. Somehow, Claire had reluctantly agreed to his idea of horseback riding all the way to Atlanta instead of walking.

"C'mon. It can't be harder than flying."

"Flying is easy," Claire retorted as she shifted uncomfortably on the saddle. "I have control over everything; there is a proper seat, not to mention seatbelts. _This_, on the other hand..."

"Oh, relax," he said calmly as he moved swiftly along with the horse's gait. It's been a while since he had gone horseback riding, but he soon found out he hadn't forgotten. "Everything's gonna be fine... you're doing great."

"Oh, I beg to differ," Claire grunted as she frowned and pouted out of annoyance.

Except for eventual mumbles of complaints that escaped Claire's lips, they proceeded in silence. It was kind of an awkward silence, though, for they were could see bits of Atlanta's highest buildings on the horizon.

The sight of the city's skyline made Claire feel slightly apprehensive after everything she had been through whilst crossing Florida… But she tried to push all those thoughts away. She'd made a decision and she would stick with it. Although when they reached the entrance of Atlanta, Claire felt as if the cold hands of fear had just took hold of her heart.

She held her breath and her hands flew to Rick's wrists and she gave it a not so gentle squeeze as he pulled at the reins and the horse stopped. With the exception of Claire, Rick and the horse, the road that granted access to Atlanta was dead empty, while the exit way was completely packed with abandoned vehicles.

"My God…"

Claire hadn't said much, but those two simple words spoke volumes, and while she couldn't see Rick's face for she was seated in front of him, the quiet 'woah' that he murmured was enough for her to know that he was quite as nervous as she was. If Atlanta was a safe place, then how come all those people were trying to leave the city?

In Claire's opinion, that was a rhetorical question; deep down, in a place she dared not to go, she already knew the answer. But she didn't open her mouth and told Rick that they should probably turn around and go as far from that place as they could; she knew he wouldn't listen. So she just sucked it up and braced herself for what would be waiting for them in the roads of Atlanta as he pressed his heels against the horse's sides and they started to move again.

* * *

**A/N:** Apologies for taking so long to update, but I've been pretty busy lately. And it might be a while until the next update for I do have a lot of things to study and it is time consuming.

Anyway, new chapter and I look forward to hearing from you. Also, kudos if anyone got the movie reference I added to this chapter.


	5. Survival instinct

**DISCLAIMER:** The Walking Dead and all knows characters belong to their rightful owners, which I am in no way associated with. _No copyright infringement intended._

This story has not been Beta read and because English isn't my first language, I apologise in advance for any mistakes you might find. Rated M for language, horror and eventual adult themes.

I don't like copying everything from the show because, let's be honest, if you're reading this then you've seen it all and already know what happens. I don't like to re-read things I know so I don't plan to copy everything from the show, lines mainly, but I had to re-write bits and pieces of Glenn's conversation with Rick or else it wouldn't make much sense.

Also, since this is a Rick/OC story, the way Rick and Lori interact will be quite different from the one presented on the show. Hope that's okay.

* * *

If you're going through hell, keep going.

—**Winston Churchill**

* * *

**Chapter Five.** Survival instinct

"I thought you said you were the Sheriff's Deputy!" Claire shouted quite angrily as she pressed the palm of her hands to her ears in a vain attempt to make the annoying buzzing stop. It didn't help matters.

"I am!" Rick shouted back. "Was."

"Firing a gun in such close space?! Doesn't look like it," retorted Claire. She had managed to curb the anger she was experiencing because even though shouting at Rick would make her feel a bit better, it was hardly something that would help their situation right now.

Of course Claire's bad feelings were proved right as they ventured further into Atlanta. Hundreds of rotten corpses gone mobile littered the streets of the city and they easily outnumbered them. Easily.

As she sat in the tank with her nerves taut with anxiety, Claire couldn't begin to wonder how exactly they escaped that horde without so much as a scratch. Well, not quite, for she was pretty sure she'd twisted an ankle, not to mention she'd hit her head pretty badly when she fell from the horse. Thinking about the animal and how those things literally ripped it open made her stomach turn into knots and she felt sick; she didn't exactly love horseback riding but still.

Inhaling deeply, Claire forced all those thoughts aside and focused on something else. They weren't bit or scratched. It should be a bloody miracle. But they were trapped in that tank with who knows how many flesh eating creatures outside.

Blinking a couple of times, Claire tried to pull herself together. Panicking wouldn't take them anywhere. If she wanted to get out of there alive—and boy, did she want it—, then she needed to keep a level head and think. Looking at her hands, Claire noticed how badly they were shaking. It's been a damn close call.

The brunette was still trying to get a hold of herself when she noticed Rick almost jumping to his feet and going to the cupola which was hanging open. That's where she'd gotten into the tank, and Claire berated herself for not closing it once she was inside. She tried to tell Rick to just close it and get back inside, but he didn't seem to listen to her. Not right away, that is. He stood there, gazing the outside for a few moments before he finally got back inside and shut the thing closed. The way he fell into the tank gave Claire a fairly good idea what made him do it.

"All right," she said once she regained part of her ability to think straight. "We need a plan." Claire allowed her eyes to scan their surroundings.

She had been in a tank a couple of times in her life, but they were all different than this one, and she did not know how to operate that machine. But hey, when in Rome...

As she tried to move to where she assumed would be the dashboard, Claire had to watch her every move to avoid hitting her head on the several pieces of metal that composed the vehicle. She wasn't claustrophobic, but Claire felt like a canned sardine inside that tank. And the noises coming from outside, the walkers bumping on the tank weren't helping.

She pressed several buttons and tried to start the tank, but all her efforts were of no avail.

"Bloody hell." Claire pinched the bridge of her nose as she mentally reminded herself to keep breathing. She could feel a migraine coming and her ankle was starting to complain. Things were bad, going to worse in an alarmingly high speed.

The familiar sound of the clicking of a gun brought Claire back to the present time. For a split second, she thought about her backpack, lying on the asphalt with her guns, clothes, some food and, of course, her satellite phone. She couldn't even get mad at Rick for his bag of guns had fallen as well. Long story short: they were fucked. Well, maybe not.

It took her a couple of seconds, but at last Claire remembered she had an extra clip in her pocket for the weapon she had on her.

"How are you on ammo?" She asked Rick as she replaced the empty clip—which she had used as she climbed the tank—with the loaded one.

Claire's eyes searched for Rick when he didn't answer right away and she felt a shiver down her spine when she saw him holding the Beretta he'd pulled from the fallen soldier; the weapon dangerously close to his head.

Lowering her own Desert Eagle, Claire shifted on the seat; she was just about to call out his name and tell him to not do anything stupid when the sound of static filled the small space of the tank.

Hardly believing her ears, Claire turned her head to the radio. She hadn't touched the device and neither did Rick, so it meant only one thing. Someone else was calling.

_"Hey, you."_

Claire's mouth hung open. There was someone else. Someone awful young if the voice was anything to go by, but that was the very least of her worries.

Turning her head, Claire noticed that Rick wore the same dumbfounded expression that she did. He blinked once and his blue eyes met Claire's mismatched ones; they did nothing but stare at each other and Claire could read in Rick's eyes that he was thinking just the same thing she was. And she couldn't even be mad at the person whose voice was coming through the radio for calling them "dumbasses" or being sarcastic, because she was so caught up with the brand new possibilities; possibilities that they weren't alone, that maybe they weren't as good as dead, trapped in that tank, that maybe—just maybe—there was a way out...

—

"Hey. You're alive in there?"

Rick was faster than Claire and got to the radio first, although not before hitting his head on something.

There was a bit of panic mixed with anxiety and something that Claire could only name as hope in Rick's voice when he answered the person on the other end. It was totally understandable, though. Claire was still occupying the driver's seat and she was feeling those exact same things.

"Where are you? Outside? Can you see us right now?"

The questions seemed to slip out of Rick's mouth at their own will. Their eyes met once more and Claire found herself biting on her lip as they waited for the other man's answer. He said he could see them and that they were surrounded. Great. Not that Clare or Rick were expecting something different, considering she had nearly emptied a clip and Rick had used all bullets his Colt Python would hold; all the noise plus the dead horse right next to the tank were sure to draw the attention of ever single walker for miles. Still._ Great_.

But a flicker of hope took over Claire and Rick when the voice on the other end added: _"that's the bad news"_.

"There's good news?" Rick promptly asked, voicing the same question that Claire had thought of.

Though their feeble hopes crashed and burned when the voice on the radio answered _"no"_.

Brilliant. We're screwed, Claire thought bitterly to herself, allowing her head to fall to her chest.

She always tried to remain positive about everything in her life, but with the world as fucked up as it was and her not knowing a damn thing about James or Brandon, trapped in a tank with no supplies and hundreds of walkers outside, it was pretty damn hard to keep optimistic. Not to mention the fact that her head was now hurting like a bitch and her ankle was throbbing. She wanted to tell Rick how she had been right about horses all along, but she didn't had it in her to start a fight. He wasn't to blame, really. She had agreed to this crazy expedition, so...

–

To say that the stranger's answer, albeit expected, felt like a bucket of cold water being poured upon him was one hell of an understatement.

Deep down, Rick had expected the man would say yes, there were good news, even if just one and tiny as fuck. He wasn't ready to give up, not when he had started.

Rick was still clutching to the radio and trying to not let the man's words bring him down when he caught a glimpse of Claire and the view was quite concerning. She had her head bowed, and even if he couldn't see her face, he felt as if she wasn't all right. It was like she was getting too overwhelmed. Claire. The woman who had saved his life, risked her life going to the hospital, changed her way and decided to help him.

If Rick didn't feel responsible for their current situation, he sure as hell did now.

"Listen," he said, speaking to the person on the radio again. "Whoever you are, I don't mind telling you I'm a little concerned in here."

_Little_ was a nice way of putting things. He was more than a little concerned, but Rick didn't think "I'm afraid we're gonna die in here" was going to be of any help, especially when Claire didn't seem very hopeful either.

Speaking of which, as soon as he said those words, Rick's eyes met Claire's and he could tell she was trying to do like he was doing—keep it together. He gave her a little nod; it was a small gesture, though one that told her they'd figure something, and he hoped, when Claire nodded back, that she understood what he wasn't saying.

_"Oh, man... You should see it from over here. You'd be having a _major _freak out."_

Rick averted his eyes from the radio, as if he was trying to avoid looking at the person he was speaking to. There he was, trying to maintain some sort of calm environment and the kid outside was telling him they were fucked. That was not helpful.

"Got any advice for us?" Rick had tried to keep the sarcasm at bay, but he didn't quite succeed.

_"Yeah. I'd say make a run for it."_

Rick waited a few moments, hoping that the kid was gonna say something else, like give him an advice that didn't sound as stupid and potentially disastrous, but the radio was silent.

Once again, Rick looked at Claire, but the woman's face was as vacant as the kid's answer had been.

"That's it?" He asked, dubiously. "Make a run for it?" That couldn't be serious.

_"My way is not as dumb as it sounds. You've got eyes on the outside here." _

If the note of impatience on the kid's voice was anything to go by, Rick would say that, apparently, that was serious.

As the voice on the radio proceeded to inform them about the situation outside the tank, Rick began to actually consider the hypothesis. He wanted to ask Claire what she thought of that plan of sorts the other man was concocting, but didn't have to. The look in her eyes told him she'd been listening very intently to his words and she was almost completely convinced. Almost.

_"You with me so far?"_

The young man's voice came through and Claire nodded at Rick. "So far..."

–

She wasn't even sure what she was agreeing to, but it wasn't like they had many options to choose from so Claire simply paid attention to everything the man on the other end was saying, hanging onto his words like a silver lining.

She paid careful attention when he explained about the street that wasn't completely taken, all the while moving her ankle, hoping the constant motion would allow her to do as he had said and "make a run for it". Claire was fully aware of the fact that injuries were likely to slow you down, but she'd be damned if she would let it stop her. Hell, no.

She heard it all right when the man on the radio asked about what they had and her hand took hold of her Desert Eagle. Claire double checked it before telling Rick she had a full clip. She didn't tell him right away, though. She had seen it when he had crawled towards the deceased soldier to check his uniform once again. If Rick had found something useful or not, Claire couldn't tell, but she frowned lightly when her eyes landed on his back and he seemed to be checking his pockets. Maybe he forgot he had something...

"I got a Beretta with one clip. Fifteen rounds," Rick declared. Claire took that time to show him her own weapon and mouth him the word 'full'. He nodded at her, but didn't get to update the man on their ammo status for he spoke before he could do that.

_"Make 'em count."_

He did not need to say that, Claire thought to herself as she pushed herself away from the seat. She couldn't help but wince when she supported the weight of her body on her ankle. Considering her life and career, Claire was accustomed with pain, but bloody hell, did that hurt.

Her eyes drifted quickly to Rick, but he was fully engrossed in the other man's words to notice her. Claire was glad for that. Not that she thought he'd leave her there, but she wouldn't like him questioning what she could or could not do. No. She was just testing her steps when she heard it.

Fifty yards.

Claire inhaled deeply. Fifty yards. That was all right, was it not? I mean, she had done worse on one of her tours in Afghanistan. She had to fly a Black Hawk for about twenty minutes with a bullet on her left arm, what was a fifty yard run with a busted ankle? And it wasn't even broken.

She could do it. She _would_ do it.

She had just convinced herself it would be a piece of cake when she heard something else. Claire shook his head and an amused chuckle escaped her lips. Leave it to Rick to ask people about their names, regardless of the situation. She would've said something about the matter if she weren't so focused on getting out of that tank alive.

When Rick finally ended the conversation, Claire was already prepared to what they were about to do.

"Ready?" He asked, standing right in front of her; the soldier's Beretta held tightly on his grip.

If she was to be honest, Claire would have to say she wasn't quite ready yet. But she didn't think she would ever be one hundred per cent ready for something like that; besides, she could see very clearly in Rick's expression how tense he was, so she sucked up and put on a brave face.

"Beam us up."

—

Rick, Claire and the young Asian who had helped them getting out of the tank stood side by side on a tiny platform on the end of the ladder they climbed to escape the swarm of walkers that flooded the alley almost as soon as they got there.

Resting her forearms on the railing, Claire shut her eyes closed as she tried to focus on keeping her breaths a somewhat regular rather than anything else. She was panting—granted, they all were as an expected result from their latest escapade—, but the main reason why she was paying so much attention to her breathing pattern was to distract herself from the throbbing she was feeling both on her ankle and her head.

The pain was still bearable but Claire could hardly concentrate on what was happening around her. She could hear Rick's voice and the other man's as well, but it sounded distant, like they were talking several metres from where she was. And Claire hated the feeling.

She had managed to steady her breaths when something made her groan. Right below them, a walker seemed to be attempting to climb the same ladder they had in order to get to the three of them. A frustrated sigh escaped her lips.

Pushing herself from the railing, Claire turned to face Rick and whoever the other man was. She was almost certain that, by now, Rick had already figured out what was the name of the Asian but she wasn't exactly paying attention. But it was pretty clear that she wasn't the only one who had noticed that the walkers were trying to catch up with their lunch; both Rick and the Asian kid had turned their backs to the crowd of sorts underneath and were looking at yet another ladder, and a pretty damn big one, for that matter. It took Claire every last bit of strength she still had not to whine. Oh, hell. That would suck. But what was that in comparison to everything else she had already gone through? It was like Churchill had said once, if you're going through hell...

Though Claire couldn't help arching an inquiring eyebrow when she heard the Asian kid saying something about _bright side_. Now, wasn't that something else? But she knew better than to make any derisive comments regarding his humour, after all, he had saved their lives—hers and Rick's—when he didn't even have to.

"You all right?"

The young man's voice made Claire blink as she looked away from the top of the building and met his dark eyes. She noticed not only him, but Rick as well was looking at her rather carefully. She didn't really have to be a genius to figure out why, though. She hadn't said one word until now.

"Yeah," she said simply, though she knew he could tell she was lying. She was far from all right; all of them were, and he may have thought about the very same thing for he didn't say anything else. Instead, he simply nodded at her and began to climb.

Narrowing her eyes, she watched the young man ascending. He made it look so easy... and it was. She knew it wasn't hard, she just needed to keep moving and not look down. Ignore her ankle and just keep climbing.

Claire took a deep breath, and she was just about to follow the man when a hand on her shoulder stopped her. It was Rick.

"Hey... Are you really all right?"

There was that question again. But there was something else; something about the way he was looking at her, almost as if he was studying her, trying to read her. He was still concerned.

Releasing a breath she didn't really notice she was holding, Claire tried to put on her mask of calmness. She wasn't sure if she succeeded, but her voice sounded incredibly soft. "All things considered?"

"Well..." Rick shifted his weight from one leg to the other, and how he lowered his head, it gave Claire the impression that he was carrying a very heavy burden upon his shoulders.

"Look, it doesn't matter." Claire tried to keep her tone soft, despite her words. "Not right now, at least. Let's just focus on getting out of here, okay?"

Glancing at the ladder once more, Claire noticed that the Asian man was almost in the middle of it and they needed to get moving. It seemed like Rick was on the same page for he muttered a simple yeah and gestured at the ladder.

–

Claire felt like the steps would never end. She kept pushing herself up, but the top of the building never appeared. Until it finally did, and she learned they weren't exactly near their destination—wherever that was.

She found herself half-jogging, half-limping across the rooftop, through a passage that connected two buildings, and onward towards, just her luck, more ladders.

Once again, Claire could tell Rick and the young man were talking about something, but she was too damn focused on not allowing the pain to win that she couldn't register any words that made some sense; it was basically just noise. It looked like Rick had said something to her, but she had no idea what that was; she didn't mean to ignore him, but she didn't trust her voice, so she simply got to the ladder and down she went, through an empty room and, oh the joy, stairs.

It was basically survival instinct that was driving Claire at that point, but she was damn relieved when she heard the man in front of her speaking on his walkie-talkie.

"I'm back. Got guests plus four geeks in the alley."

That was it. With a little bit of luck, all that running around was coming to an end. However, while part of her was glad that they wouldn't be out and exposed for far too long, the other part of her began to weigh the consequences of such thing. Sure that Asian kid had saved their lives, but what if the rest of his people weren't fond of him bringing two strangers in? Claire mentally cursed herself for not thinking things through. But it wasn't like she had another choice, was it?

Damn. She was becoming pretty good with finding other things to focus about rather than her possible injuries that Claire almost knocked the young man who was right in front of her. He had abruptly stopped in the middle of descending the stair and she was way too close to him; they both would've rolled down the stairs if she hadn't grabbed the railing and Rick hadn't reached out to hold her as well.

Claire stood there, frozen to the spot, as she watched two walkers turn their attention to them. They weren't fast and were only two, so she thought she could take them down for she still had some bullets on her Desert Eagle; or perhaps Rick could, given her current condition.

But her weapon wasn't needed. Only a few seconds later, Claire saw the door of the building right in front of her swing open and two figured, dressed in a very unusual fashion—sort of a baseball catcher and ninja crossover—emerged from it, swinging baseball bats at the walkers.

"C'mon," Rick said as he urged Claire to continue her way down the stairs and into the safety of the building, to which she happily (albeit painfully) obliged.

Walking around one of the two bodies, Claire didn't spare one glance to what was happening there; all she wanted was to stop for a while and just breathe. Perhaps try to find something to ease the pain, but she was quite sure that was wishful thinking. If only she had not lost her bag when they were surrounded by walkers...

But whatever thoughts and concerns she could have regarding her lost bag and the medications she got from King County's hospital, even the blinding pain in her head and her ankle, were quickly replaced by this strong sense of preservation when she found herself inside the building.

It all happened way too fast. They had literally just stepped inside, Rick was standing right behind her; considering he had practically led her all the way into the building, he had already noticed she wasn't a hundred per cent fine, and Claire was counting the seconds that he'd take to ask her what had happened when she felt a pull on her arm; the arm which Rick had been holding up until now.

Glancing over her shoulder, Claire only saw the back of a blonde head and Rick being shoved against what appeared to be boxes piled up.

Her head was pounding from the combination of the blow against the asphalt when she fell off the horse, the gunshot inside the tank, the running around with a busted ankle, the adrenaline still running through her veins... She could hear the pumping of the blood in her ears and she definitely, _definitely_ not in her best state of mind considering all the stress she had just been through. So, she was finding very hard to care about the fact that she was amongst people she didn't know, that she had literally just seen two guys—two big guys—beat the shit out of two walkers mere seconds ago and right in front of her very eyes, that she was hardly steady on her feet... The list of things she couldn't care about still went on, but the only thing she cared about that moment was the blonde woman who had a gun pointed straight at Rick's head.

She was still having a bit of trouble making out every single word people said, but she heard it all right when the blonde woman had said something about killing Rick.

Claire's vision was a bit blurred, but, much to her surprise, her hands were quite steady. Steady enough for her to slide the safety strap off, pull her gun from its holster, slide a bullet into the chamber and raise it so it was lined up with the blonde's right temple.

"Just one wrong move, one wrong blink and you will be dead before your finger can squeeze that trigger."

* * *

**A/N:** Just thought I should let you all know that I have nothing against Andrea's character. Not gonna lie, I don't agree with everything she'd ever done but I don't hate her. I actually kind of like her. So, despite that ending, there won't be hate towards the blonde on this story. Just so we're clear.

Thanks for reading. Review, please?


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